Duskwood Update

5/10 around noon

I arrived in a horrifying charnel house full of blood, rotting meat, rusted cages, bloodstained tables, and large glass jars full of a greenish grey liquid. Propped up on a wooden frame and supported by hanging wires was a hideous mountain of stitched together flesh, dripping blood and ichor onto the dirty floor. It was all lit by brightly glowing bottles embedded in the walls.

While I was momentarily stunned by suddenly arriving in the trailer for a particularly gory horror game, a pair of hooded and masked figures splattered in blood approached me holding surgical tools. “Oh. Master. I didn’t know you were coming.” Abby’s voice came from the shorter of the two.

“Uh. Yeah. Are you in the middle of something? Should I go?” I kinda wanted to leave immediately, but stress resistance was helping me get a hold on myself.

“Oh no, no. We are at a stopping point. I was intending to have lunch soon.” My stomach rebelled against the idea of food right now, but I followed them up the stairs. At a landing they stripped off their protective outer layers and revealed two beautiful women; one I was familiar with and one I could identify, but only because of context clues.

Eliza was cleaned up and wearing a black dress. She was, if anything, more generously proportioned than her former husband. For the most part she looked like a busty human woman, but there were a few unusual traits that would make her true nature clear to an alert observer. Her hands were longer than one would normally expect, and even a cursory examination of her fingernails revealed that they were talons extending from the finger, drastically tougher and and thicker, probably fused directly to the bone itself. Her pale grey hair was long, drastically longer than it had been before capture, reaching all the way to her ass. Her teeth were pointed, optimized to rip and tear. Her skin was pale and just a little too perfect. Importantly, she stared at me like she was awaiting orders.

https://imgur.com/a/RyJAE9e

“Look. I’m considering splitting you two up. I think Eliza needs to be trained to fight; feral pouncing is all well and good but you’ll be fighting things powerful enough that you can’t just rely on overwhelming them.”

Abby looked a bit like I’d unexpectedly slapped her, while Eliza took the news pretty calmly. “My first thought on how to do that is to send you to Orgrimmar or Undercity to be trained as a new recruit for the Forsaken. Otherwise, I’ll need to find and assign someone to teach you.” She seemed to have some innate necromantic power to draw upon, but I didn’t think I’d be able to find any death knights to formally train her on Craigslist. I’d just need to make her into a bootleg one.

“Master, that’s absurd. Death itself couldn’t part us and you intend to divide us just so she can learn how to swing about a bit of metal? Perhaps, instead, you might have her practice at a school of magic she has a natural affinity for, hmm?”

Ok. No. There’s pushback and then there’s disrespect. I was going to need to put her in her place. “Abby. Come sit on my lap.” She seemed more than happy enough to do so, assuming she’d won a point on me or something. I wondered how long that happiness would last as I idly started playing with her breast. “Now, I understand you don’t like the idea of being separated from Eliza, but that’s no excuse for rudeness. Eliza, leave and start going to Stranglethorn Veil. Now. I’ll contact you when I have more information.” Eliza gave us a wistful, apologetic look to Abby, but she obeyed without complaint.

“You see, Abby? You see how a proper servant acts. She made her unhappiness clear but she didn’t argue. She saw that I was not taking questions or suggestions right now and accepted with grace. She understood that I knew best.” I held Abby in place as she tried to call out to her beloved in a state of extreme distress, at least until I pulled out the orb of entrancement. “Now then. I’m going to remind you what is most important. Bend over this table, I’m going to fuck you, and you’re going to love every second. Just forget about everything else until I snap.”

I took her right there and, as commanded, she loved it. To her this was a social call, or more accurately a booty call, and nothing was wrong. After all, she was being fucked by her master; I’m pretty sure she took that order seriously because she seemed to have lost the ability to speak when I told her to forget everything. In the end I pulled her off and came on her face as she gazed up at me with an adorably happy expression. It faded into shock as I snapped my fingers, and confused relief as I finished summoning Eliza right back with apportation.

“I’m not cruel, and I am considering other options. Those are my choices, to be made with your opinions and desires taken into account as much, or as little, as I wish. Thank you for your suggestion; I hadn’t considered teaching her a more refined understanding of necromancy. Eliza, clean her up. I’ll check back in when I’ve made my decision.”

I left. I hope I don’t come off as too petty, dear reader. I did have one extra reason for doing as I did. Abby had been sitting idly at her final entrancement breakpoint. Sure, I didn’t have any specific plans for that, but finalizing that binding just felt right. What if I needed to send someone deep undercover to fight a mind reader or something? It might be redundant if I buy Mind Runes, but I’m undecided there.

I confirmed that she had in fact broken the last barrier by joyously getting fucked as the love of her life departed to parts unknown, and apparently that was worth an achievement.

Hat TrickFulfill three different forms of capture with one target.Reward: Target Tracker V1

I checked my map to see if it would give me any more information, and thankfully it did. Large circles were now on my world map, a mile or two across, indicating the approximate locations of my mission targets. Definitely nifty.

In the short term I did a flyover of the graveyard. I wanted to see the reality shift at work before I went to Stormwind. With superior draconic vision, I was able to oversee a very strange and vaguely nightmarish sight. Around half of the undead were, of course, completely unchanged. Rotted flesh, twisted bodies, exposed bones. The works.

The females were practically a study in how unattractive you can make women while maintaining a perfect 10 face and body for each. Spattered in mud and blood, wearing rags at most, hair in extreme states of disarray, blank or feral expressions, posture that ranged from hunched over to incredibly stiff. They were beautiful bodies without the slightest fuck given about presentation or personality. An army of discarded sex dolls on the side of the street. Oh. One major difference: they would kill me on sight.

I’m pretty sure almost any woman in that graveyard would have the looks to become a minor internet celebrity within minutes if they exhibited literally any signs of intelligent life. A single remotely appealing character trait; shyness, an interest in clothing, monomaniacal focus on literally any political opinion, a desire to clean and tidy up their surroundings, clear attachment to a piece of jewelry. It wouldn’t need to be deep or complex, just enough to make them an individual person, but there was none of that.

The “skeletons” were the worst; they were still, lifeless, and uniform in appearance. The ghouls were, ironically, the least unsettling to me because they varied in appearance more and acted like wild animals, wandering around restlessly and occasionally getting into short lived brawls or random lesbian quickies to pass the time.

As I wheeled around and went to the north, I wondered if this would make the differences between undead factions more stark. The Forsaken were all complete individuals; the ladies of Undercity would probably still be bitter about their hard lives and the things they lost, but they would likely take a bit more care with their appearance and pursue their own interests.

The Scourge were far more intelligent than these puppets on average. Their wills were bent in service to the Lich King, but many of them, at least the ones risen by the plague of undeath or the Lich King’s own will, maintained some level of self awareness and individuality; enough for there to be an actual chain of command and hierarchy, even the possibility of promotion within the organization. The only precedent that sprang to mind were the San’Layn, vampire elves in Northrend who at the very minimum continued to care about fashion and presentation. Would the ladies of the scourge be more like that now? Had I made the scourge more powerful by giving them sex appeal as an extra tool?

Then there were these puppets, created by independent necromancers, which were barely aware enough to throw themselves at intruders. They could be cleaned and dressed up like dolls, but by default they weren’t going to be doing anything with their looks. Sure, all three types would probably kill a random human wandering in their territory, but their presentation might be very different.

Regardless, I had just been invited to dinner at chateau Ellerian. Auffrey wanted me to meet her parents and give my sales pitch for the Lions. I’d need to wear my nice clothes, and bring a gift. I was thinking jewelry.