Vignettes and Consideration
5/7 morning
Vanessa, properly dressed as Hope Saldean, approached the crossroads with Tony at her side. Her master had sent her a collar, more befitting her place, so naturally she’d put that on just as quickly as she could and gave Tony her ruby. She ordered her silk masks to stay back so that Otto wouldn’t be suspicious, but the real plan was to let Tony have the opportunity to take on her Lord’s form.
Seeing him, even knowing it was actually Tony, made her weak in the knees. If he’d commanded her to serve, she’d have done anything to please. That was her own impatience speaking, of course. Lord Bismark would likely be displeased if she knowingly submitted herself to another without being ordered to. Thankfully Tony showed restraint; surely he would be rewarded in the future.
Regardless, they spent a short time chatting noncommittally with the watchers about Otto’s uncle and a bounty on spiders. Tony was not very good at impersonating their lord, but thankfully none of the silk masks had met their rightful sovereign yet. She brought Tony back to the team she’d chosen to escort Otto and Vanessa to Moonbrook; it would be a three day journey with plenty of opportunities to subdue her friends. Her current plan was to have a nice bottle of Dalaran Noir around the campfire tonight, spiked with sleeping powder which she and Tony would resist. Easy enough to put them into her Lord’s magic bag then.
Lividia and Abby would get a bit of backup tomorrow; she didn’t know who yet, and would let her lord choose the strike force. Vanessa would go to them, take Irma away, have the team disable and detain the other two, and figure out some task that would waste Irma’s time until she was ready to submit fully to her lord’s will.
After that, she’d continue on her way to her father, and give him a pretty magical necklace as a gift. He’d never suspect her to betray him, and so he would be shackled to Lord Bismark’s will just as they all were. She’d need to be careful, but she could deliver the whole Brotherhood into his hands if father was an ally. Just as Lord Bismark deserved from all people. Perhaps then she’d be allowed to serve in a more personal capacity, unless her lord had other plans for her.
••••••••••
“In summary, it appears that Agent Sylvius has instituted a civil war among the Gnolls of the Riverpaw pack. The Westbrook Garrison reports that attacks on refugees as well as their patrols have gone down, though they believe that the pack ruled by the notorious gnoll alpha Hogger will defeat and reabsorb the rest within a few weeks. This is good work, thinning their numbers at no cost to our own. I recommend a commendation, despite her actions being outside of her remit. On a related note, assassination of Hogger may extend the conflict and further reduce their numbers. I have increased the bounty, but there are few takers these days.
Master Mathias Shaw sighed as he went over the report. Sylvius had plateaued a few years back, but she was still a highly competent and level headed agent for SI:7. Seeing that she was going against her orders was disappointing. His listener was probably right; she was doing good work-
The pendant he around his neck pulsed vengefully.
But she was a loose cannon. If he couldn’t trust his agents to do as he said without question, they were liabilities. As Lady Prestor had explained in their last meeting, it was vital that they find out exactly who was funding the Riverpaw and pulling their strings before they acted. When they made their move it should be decisive, to end the gnoll threat forever. Anything else was sloppy work. He couldn’t have sloppy agents. The rogue element would need to be dealt with.
He shook his head. No. No, he had to hold onto his humanity even in this job. He’d send someone to fetch her and explain the severity of her transgression. Then he’d assign her to something less sensitive, like scouting the Swamp of Sorrows. She was still a good agent.
The amulet pulsed petulantly. If he got anything less than her full cooperation, though, or she did anything else out of line, the best she could possibly hope for is losing her position in SI:7. Stormwind’s security couldn’t be compromised because he was too soft hearted.
••••••••••
Eliza wept. She had no tears, but she could think of no other way to describe her constant pain. Her body was wracked with both pain and pleasure. She’d been promised a place of honor as her captor’s knight, and then left there. The idea had been infectious, and she felt a warmth and wonder at the thought of being allowed to roam the world acting on the mysterious man’s behalf. It was her only solace for the last few days, but the pleasure never abated so long as she focused on the future she had been promised.
Every time she moved, spoke, or tried to contact the man who spoke through the gemstone, she was wracked with pain. A part of her whispered that she hadn’t accepted that his will was absolute yet. Someone ready to be his knight wouldn’t reject his obvious implied edicts, that was why she was hurting. She was to stay here, silent and confined, until he was ready for her. She wanted to be a good knight, but she couldn’t help it. She was ready, so very ready, and he kept her waiting. She needed to crush the part of her that questioned him. The part of her that still insisted that her discontent was anything but petty rebellion on her part. Then, and only then, would she be able to become a proper knight for him.
••••••••••
“No. No imps. I told you already: No. Imps.”
“Oh come on boss! We can do all sorts of things.”
“Yeah, but I already have you for those things and if Drusilla is correct, the imps you would bring back would probably be wild imps of the lowest order. You’re mildly useful with the ability to throw fire, but imps that would need to fight with their claws will never be worth a necklace. Hell, that Wyrmtongue probably isn’t worth the trouble but I’ll at least consider it.”
I hadn’t really been expecting top billing from Mezzo’s social circle, so honestly I was impressed. If he’d told me that he played cards with an Eredar sorceress on Tuesdays I’d be even happier, but I’m not going to say no to a Satyr.
Satyrs were not one of the most prolific types of demon, reproducing primarily by convincing, or “convincing,” other mortals to become satyrs too, and they didn’t have much in the way of unique magical powers. But they were a bunch of agile, muscular 7 foot tall dudes with sadism, trickery, and religious fanaticism baked into their psyches. I’ll take your whole stock, thank you.
I was honestly not holding out much hope that she’d naturally be particularly attractive, despite what Mezzo said about her being more up my alley. As far as I knew, female satyrs never actually got a separate model, which might mean that they didn’t look noticeably different from the males. Maybe I’d get lucky and Hearthstone was at least somewhat canon. I vaguely remembered a card that had a satyr chick on it who was basically attractive in the same way that most women on Hearthstone cards were. If not? Whatever, I can make her look however I want. I suspect they’d get a bit samey if I designed all of them though.
The stray fel hound Mezzo told me about was distinctly a maybe. I was pretty sure that with enough study I’d be able to just summon my own, but I never seemed to have the time to devote to my studies. Maybe delegating more will fix it, but ever since having my ability to become stressed and overworked blunted by stress defense, I’d become a bit of a busybody. I hadn’t even started on arcane magic, for example, though admittedly I mostly wanted it for the utility spells like blink or conjuring food and water, and definitely frost armor. I will absolutely spend half an hour prebuffing if it would mean I could take a punch from an infernal and keep ticking.
I gave Mezzo his orders: he was to convince this Satyr to put on his necklace without arousing suspicion. Once she was captured, I’d check and see if Mezzo would still be an acceptable conduit for channeling fel magic, and if he still counted against my soft lock on imps. I was waiting until I had another demon to turn him into, just to be careful. This could be an abusable exploit, or it could effectively lock me out of summoning imps until I found a sentient person I was willing to sacrifice for a modest amount of power.
Probably a gnoll. I was honestly down with gnoll genocide actually, they appeared to have zero redeeming qualities. Yeah, this was a logistical problem, not a moral one. Could I kill dozens of gnolls instead of one really powerful entity for my third imp, actually?
Realizations about my moral compass’s continual decline aside, I honestly didn’t know what to do with my day. You know me, when I don’t know what to do I start diddling with my phone. In an attempt to feel productive, I snuck off and turned into a dragon, then started looking for herbs. Next time there was a big military action, I intended to have potions for my army.
I didn’t have much new in terms of updates. Tessa was captured and currently in Northshire, feeding any friends and family she had the line of bullshit I’d given her. Unless I’d erected a Lividia tier wall of delusion around her mind, she’d probably realize what really happened eventually. But I was ok with that; no one else who had found out at this point had cared.
Someone named Irma was wearing an amulet. I didn’t know anything about her yet, except that she was already halfway mine going off of her ETE, estimated time to enslavement. Until I knew anything about her I wasn’t inclined to start meddling with her. I decided to let Vanessa have access to the triggers on anyone she captured on my behalf. What’s the worst that could happen? Apparently she had a mind control kink, but that didn’t mean she suddenly lost all of her understanding of subtlety.
I was probably going to install her as the leader of the Defias; rather, I was going to have her install herself by giving her full access to my company swag. I didn’t expect to have much to do with that process. Covert talent was another area where I’d learned basically entirely through the medium of blundering through and picking things up as I went. I’d gotten pretty good at lying and disguises, but conspiracy was still above my pay grade.
From what I remembered of Westfall in Cataclysm, the Defias had a lot more public support and acted with a lot more subtlety under Vanessa’s leadership. She’d held rallies for recruitment, and gotten a lot of takers despite her numbers and influence being a shadow of her father’s Defias. Edwin, on the other hand, made an army of angry rioters that caused rampant chaos, deployed scarecrow murder bots with the explicit intention of causing a famine, alienated anyone that didn’t join up immediately, and murdered the queen while she was trying to advocate for them. I wasn’t sure if I was going to give him the Abby treatment or keep him around as a figurehead, but he lacked the finesse that his daughter maintained even when she was consumed by just as much hatred and rage.
As I gathered up another clump of briarthorn, I wondered what I was missing with Lillibeth’s powers. I knew that sincere love confessions would work, even if they were made under the influence of mind control. Lillibeth herself had been pushed into it by Abby’s necklace.
Wait. “Prudence is here but she’s not doin any of the thinkin, and Lillibeth isn’t doing any of the doing or the talking.” Prudence wasn’t thinking, even less than Abby had been. Prudence was a vegetable until she was captured and body tune-up healed her, she probably wasn’t even aware of her surroundings at the moment. Her body was repeating words and expressing emotions that weren’t her own. If she were aware at all, Lillibeth would have to fight her on at least some things, but she was nothing but a puppet. The same would probably be true of any mindless undead Lillibeth took over. Anyone that she could just use as a skin suit was too far gone.
If I wanted to capture people with Lillibeth, she’d need to get them to knowingly say they loved me and mean it, not just completely bypass their conscious mind entirely. I had no idea how viable this was, but it seemed at least possible. I wasn’t sure how much I’d need to rely on altered mental states and emotional priming to get the average person to submit, but weak willed people are still people, and loyal people are useful. Azeroth had plenty of half crazed psychologically vulnerable people, Lillibeth included until a few days ago.
I had no confirmation, but this just felt right. At least right enough to start testing when I had time and an appropriate environment. Like a bunch of drunk or stupid people.