Puttering about Raven Hill

5/20 evening

Creation is destruction. Emeriss had at least partially understood that even when she was stupid and weak. The Great One demanded that she destroy without creation, which was so much harder. She hated that he was still weak and stupid, but his Will could not be denied. To deny him was worse than death, though perhaps death was worse since now he had ordered her to not die. She must meditate on that.

She approached the graveyard through the mists, guiding her companions. She liked them. They were Right. They saw the weakness and foolishness of the world for what it was; a disease. A delusion. They were devoted fully to the Great One. Any who failed to agree on these fundamental truths was simply wrong. Flawed. Broken. In need of fixing. Death was acceptable. The dead have no incorrect thoughts. Correction was better, when possible, but the poetic silence of death was nearly as good.

Her last great one, so flawed in his near perfection, had preferred to teach in his own special way. He had understood that all must be woven together into the Nightmare, and had done so, but foolishly believed himself to be the rightful master. How silly. The new Great One would need to be taught, but she knew not how to teach him yet. How does one correct someone without defying them?

No. No no no. That is not the task. The task is the destruction of the dead. Easy enough, easy. The dragon threw herself into the fight as the three spirits hunted. The mindless dead were so easy. She needed only to strike them down with claw and tail and jaws and breath, and she would find more to kill running in.

When she was injured, she could simply feed upon the land: the plants and the insects, the nutrients in the ground. She was only regrowing herself. The great one couldn't possibly object to that. Life might bloom again someday, if this land were revitalized. It wouldn't spread. Probably.

The spirits prowled as great panthers, supernaturally silent and graceful. They would find the necromancer while Emeriss drew his army's attention. They would break him. They would fix him. They would not defy the great one.

••••••••••

The wolf man stood and stared at me. I checked my amulet for a name; no dice. He was listed as "worgen male 1."

"Alright Fido. So, are you going to be a good boy if I let you out?" He nodded, then surprisingly growled out "yes."

"So what will you do then?"

"Defend territory. Kill those outside the pack. Hunt. Eat." That didn't sound like a blank slate to me. Wait. Shit. Instincts and biology. He was a worgen; he'd already been overwhelmed by foreign instincts.

"Just wait there for now. I'll be back in a bit." I wanted to see what the medallion would do with him in this state.

••••••••••

https://imgur.com/a/harnea-myrea-irela-druids-of-nightmare-DjrTDkd

Harnea was on the prowl. Her sisters were with her, and they had the opportunity to kill. What could be better? The necromancer watched from afar, coordinating a group of his more elite forces, mages and skilled troops more likely to actually harm the dragon. She may need to retreat, so the three druids prepared to strike.

The arrogant necromancer thought he was safe, that his spell would protect him. It might, but Hernea intended to test that herself. She and her sisters conferred; Myrea would watch from within a nearby shack, somewhere she could see the fight, and support them with healing and magic only to a minimum degree, acting as a reserve. Irela would use magic to strike the necromancer, and Hernea would be given the privilege of physically attacking him. They waited until he sent away his elites, while he naturally stayed back to watch nervously, hoping for an undead dragon to call his own at the end of all this.

The initial pounce was flawless. She bowled the man over from behind, and ripped at his neck. The bite was satisfyingly deep, but when she looked down his neck was whole and untarnished. She didn't see, but a skeleton nearby fell in his stead. Irela largely abandoned the initial plan, instead casting down the power of the moon upon any undead that attempted to rush to their master's aid.

Harnea had him pinned, so she continued to tear into him as the frail, bookish man tried and failed to turn so he could see her and drive her off. Naturally that would be unacceptable. Harnea briefly returned to her natural form, straddling him, to wrap him in vines that would hold him down, at least for a time. The savaging continued after that, with the skeletons and ghouls rushing to their master's aid being wrapped in roots, burnt with moonfire, or collapsing as they succumbed to his wounds.

She hated it. Hated needing to stop. But Irela was running low on mana, and would soon be unable to hold back the tide, so with great sadness Harnea abandoned the assault. Morbent Fel seemed very happy for a moment, thinking his defenses had held out, that his life would be preserved another day. And then Irela, having used the last of her reserve to take the form of a bear, resumed Harnea's brutal yet bloodless work.

••••••••••

The rest of the hour had a bit of testing, mostly in the form of quizzes. We confirmed that Abby, Eliza, and Lillibeth all qualified as members of the pack, but their few surviving undead didn't. The gnoll that Abby was keeping around primarily for the purposes of doing any serious necromancy was borderline, but fell into the category of not pack when Abby wasn't occupying her. The male worgen in the nearby cage was not pack, and Dasha, the collared girl, was also borderline but edging more towards yes. I could use this. There were worse things to have around than berserkers that could identify members of my retinue at a glance.

I still wanted 100 wolf moon, though, so I handed my new recruit the medallion, and he dutifully used it. The burly wolf man shrank into an unshaven, wild looking man. He seemed even more lost than he had as a wolf.

"So," I asked, "now what would you do if I let you out?"

"I… I don't know. What do you want me to do?" Good. Good. Malleable. Only thing left to do is check to see if he will wolf out on me. Stress defense might protect me there, but I have defense, not immunity.

"I'm afraid, sir, that I have need of your blood and organs for a ritual, one which will deepen the shadows of Duskwood further and create a realm of eternal night ruled over by the spawn of the void. I'm telling you this because your fear and terror are viral ingredients to my dark designs. You see, first I will slowly draw blood from your veins until I have enough to fill this bottle, which will serve as the ink for the scroll I shall make from your skin, which I will naturally acquire while your heart still beats…"

••••••••••

The dragon was fleeing. Damn her. They needed more time to pound against this man. The skeletons had coated the great wyrm with a layer of ice, which apparently slowed her fungal healing. Harnea growled in the back of her throat. "Girls. We need to leave." The three Druids took stormcrow form and ascended into the mists. They would return to destroy this worm more fully. Anything less would be to fail the master. Unacceptable.

••••••••••

He was terrified, but he didn't take worgen form. Very promising indeed. I'd come up with a random assortment of alarming things to say to him, including most of what I could remember of a copypasta about being a Navy Seal. It seemed likely that nothing I could say to him would get him upset enough to wolf out through stress defense. Actually being put in danger might be a different story, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

I wasn't entirely sure what to do with him, but I'd come up with something. I also wasn't sure what the worgen transformation counted as, though I was hoping for corruption. If it was counted as a polymorph effect, I might not have good boys capable of controlling their own transformations for a while.

I'd still probably funnel most of my mushrooms towards worgen, and definitely my medallion's charges would go towards this. If Talaada comes to visit, she should be able to reproduce my admittedly limited success with Dasha using the same collar, swapped around from worgen to worgen as Stitches keeps bringing them back home.

It'll be a grind, but the rewards are pretty good. A deluxe mission ticket, ten credits, extra stock, and a lure? Yeah that's all gravy.

••••••••••

Lindsay Ravensun was a convenient guise for the Dark Lady. A bit of illusion and a different outfit hid her identity quite well, and allowed Sylvannas to walk among her people without being recognized. She didn't care to speak with them and learn of their plight or any such tripe, she was well aware of the difficulties her people faced already. It was useful to move without drawing attention, though, and to directly observe her agents in the field, even as she assisted them quietly. She'd found a few traitors that way, and saved a few loyal fools.

It wasn't often that she found herself in Brill, it was a small town, largely beneath her notice. The Royal Apothecary Society had a field research there and her Deathguard sometimes used it as a staging ground against the Scarlet Crusade, but it was fairly forgettable. It was, however, where a certain orc could be found.

She found "Tony" wandering the streets, looking for odd jobs. Presumably to help himself blend in, or maybe he really was just hoping to make a bit of extra coin. Either way, it left him vulnerable. She strolled up to him, and charmed him. "You. Come with me. There are things we need to discuss."

"Arright lady. What you need?"