A Time to Rest

5/15 evening

So I was stuck in bed. At first I couldn't feel anything beneath my neck, on account of my entire spine having been severed for a bit, which had its pros and cons. The obvious con being that I couldn't move and sex was entirely out of the question for now. After only an hour of regeneration, I found out about the good parts of total paralysis from the neck down: a severe reduction in agonizing pain, if your body happens to consist primarily of hamburger meat at the moment. Oh sure, stress defense meant that I got "used to it" really quickly but I assure you, the pain was definitely still there.

Paletress, or Sadie as she asked to be called, was able to soothe me. I wonder if she realized that it was a form of shadow magic she was using, or if she thought that it was just a coincidence that she entered a meditative state when using that spell to calm people down. Probably the latter. She seemed like the kind of good girl that would be horrified to realize that she was using shadow magic, even if she was using it in a completely benign way. She's going to have to get over it, if she's gonna start ripping nightmares from the hearts of men like I hired her to do.

I sure as hell couldn't sleep, so I killed time the only way I really could with partial use of one arm and basically nothing else. Oh neat. The hunting party managed to catch and kill Kaarsh. That was good news. Oh boy. Smiling hurts right now. Great. I don't want to imagine what laughter would feel like.

Time to check my next minor mission while Imentally typed out orders for the spy team. Keryn and Darcell would go to the murlocs; Keryn had proven skilled in the art of instigation, and I wanted Darcell to learn too. Amelie would go night night and travel to Feralas as Doris, where I'd have her do at least one minor mission so I could milk the system. I opened up the new mission, set in Westfall, because what else could I do?

You'll have to improvise

Disrupt Mr. Smite's life, removing him from hisposition as first mate of the Ironclad, discrediting him, and making sure that he won't be welcome among the Defias in the future.

Rewards: Corruption Fruit, animal tracker

Corruption Fruit

When eaten, this fruit makes the consumer incredibly curious and open minded about things they would otherwise find abhorrent. If someone makes an argument that they can not outright refute, no matter how asinine ("it feels good" or "you haven't even tried it" work) regarding something they would normally find morally objectionable (as opposed to merely unpleasant or foolish), they will latch onto that line of reasoning and fully buy into it, along with any other arguments or coaching from the same source on the same subject. The effect lasts roughly an hour.

New mission just dropped: be a dick to a Tauren pirate, in return get a fairly handy piece of fruit and, I assume, the big game hunter's equivalent to my herb tracker. I didn't really have any emotional connection to Mr. Smite for good or ill, but I also didn't really adore the rewards. Oh sure, if someone handed me some corruption fruit I'm sure I'd get plenty of use out of it, but my last handful of minor missions have been a bit large in scale. Fucking over Smite was both mean spirited and not very profitable, considering the time it might take. Next.

What me do?

Steal the magical axe Rockslicer from the Ogre Foreman Rhahk'Zor without him knowing where it went.

Reward: Mission ticket

That's the ticket. Reward was kinda shit, mission tickets were something I didn't need a whole pile of, but I'd bet that Vanessa can get that one done by close of business today, and I sent her a note to that effect. The important thing was unlocking a regional mission, which would in turn give me an upgrade. After that, the next minor mission would pop immediately.

I looked around for people that were currently in places that hadn't gotten a regional mission yet. Tony would arrive in Southshore in the morning, Sadie and Caledra were going to the Plaguelands once I got another healer to watch me, Prudence/Lillibeth and Auffrey were in Ironforge, and Doris was in Duskwood with Onyxia, probably waiting for her ride. I set the mission dispenser to Auffrey, figuring that a dense population like Ironforge would have a higher chance of giving a job that is doable quickly.

Doo de doo, killing time. I wish this thing had solitaire or snake or something on it. Ysondre gives corruption defense as a rebate, which I'd probably need soon. Equivalent exchange looked neat but I wasn't really sure how I'd use it yet. Wild defense from the first tier of dragons of nightmare should be useful, and Onyxia gave a rebate for it so that's 2 more credits in the bag.

I had some gruel that Sadie made for me, and Annetta tagged in as my caregiver while Medic Paletress went and explained to her commanding officer that there was an exciting new opportunity for the Argent Dawn. Probably after getting chewed out for vanishing and making everyone very nervous. I sent Caledra along and told her to offer an alliance with me on behalf of the Quel'dorei. Argent Dawn helps get her people somewhere safe, I start shipping food and supplies to the chapel. Obviously, I had plans long term to subvert the Dawn into another shell company for me, but I planned on doing that to everyone, and they'd really benefit from becoming immune to disease.

Eventually Abby came back with a collection of four ghostly night elf women, who quite promptly informed me of their everlasting love and devotion in stereo. Did you know that a boner can hurt a lot in the right situation, for example if your dick has been recently crushed? I'd never really thought about it until just then, but it's definitely true.

They were ghosts, but they didn't really think of themselves as such. As far as they remembered, they had gone into the Emerald Dream normally, went through hell, and realized that all things deserved to decay and die. That last bit was a bit alarming, because they were in the retinue, and thus highly resistant to both to mind control and good old fashioned trauma. That meant either they were being possessed in a more "body jacking" sense than my ghosts used, or they had been corrupted in such a way as to warp their thinking so that this was the new normal. I was guessing the second, but I decided that until I had corruption defense I'd err on the side of caution with anything nightmare related.

Unfortunately, their self image as still being alive meant, at least for now, they wouldn't be possessing anyone. They felt, both to themselves and to me, like they had a real body. Not even the strange hollowness of Mary; when I groped one, I just felt a normal, if thicc, ass wrapped in thick, stiff leather. They were essentially just particularly sexy and misanthropic druids that happened to be somewhat transparent. If I remembered the sliders for Mary, I could probably even make the transparency go away.

"So what am I to you?" I asked one of them at random.

"The master, who all must serve or die. Those who do not wish to obey shall be made to, those who can not be made to obey shall be eliminated." The others nodded along, in full agreement. They weren't smiling; if anything they seemed angry that there were people who would refuse to serve me.

"If you're done playing with your presents, there's more to unwrap." Abby pulled out three items; a ring, a short blade, and a hammer. "Ysondre was carrying the ring, the knife and the hammer were being carried by two of the druids. Including this one." Abby tried scratching affectionately behind one of the ear of the spirit I'd talked to, but she was mine now, and had shaken off the necromancer's control. The druidess caught her wrist in a death grip.

"Do not touch me." She spoke with a shocking amount of venom for someone talking to a sister slave, and Abby was clearly taken aback. The spirit was lifted by a tendril of shadow around her neck, but didn't let go. The other three were turning angered eyes upon Abby.

"Abby. You. That's enough. I don't want any trouble between my girls." The two of them turned to me and Abby let go first, and in turn was let go very reluctantly. "What's your name?" I asked the rather touchy spirit.

"Harnea Winterbough." She was looking me dead in the eye. Not very submissive, compared to some of my girls.

"Well, I'll need to figure out what to do with you, but I suspect it will include fighting. Any clue what these do?" I gestured at the items.

She looked them over. "The dagger is infused with a green dragon's breath, it will release a small spray of acid when it gets a good strike. The hammer is enchanted to improve one's strength and speed, but unlike most weapons it will fuse with and strengthen a form of power."

"As in Druidic shapeshifting?"

"What else would I be referring to?" Fair point, though I would definitely check to see if it worked when transforming to and from a visage.

"And the ring?"

"It looks familiar, but I don't know. It is fully engulfed in the nightmare. Whatever it's primary purpose, it isn't inclined to fulfill that purpose right now."

Ok. It seemed basically inert for the moment. I could probably use it as a sample of the Nightmare for study. Once I had corruption defense, anyway. I popped it into my inventory, where it would be quarantined in a time bubble. Like I said; I wasn't immune to corruption, I didn't really want to risk falling to the number one cause of raid-bossitis by becoming corrupted by some variant of dark magic. I was already feeling really antsy knowing that I wouldn't have much cause to use magic for a few days. Most forms of magic were fairly addictive. I didn't like the prospect of dealing with withdrawals, but I also didn't want to waste credits on addiction defense if it wasn't totally necessary.

I had three amulets left for the day. I was tempted to send them to Paletress, but I didn't want to risk the Argent Dawn having one of their enchanters give it a once over and get spooked. If she was going to start passing them out, it wouldn't be in an official capacity. Not until I could capture anyone among their leaders that would ask those questions. I wasn't about to risk a group as well respected and genuinely benevolent as the Argent Dawn finding out about the seedier aspects of what I was doing.

I didn't want them to be wasted, so I went over what my plans for them had been today. Carevin, a prisoner, and someone in Ironforge. That last one was easy, I just needed to send it to Auffrey and Prudence with a reminder that the most important thing is that the person collared be someone who won't investigate it more closely. Let it be their problem; they were smart girls.

I had the druidesses grab a couple girls from the inventory and toss necklaces on them. Apparently someone had dumped four guys in there at some point; I'm not sure how or why but based on their bandannas I was guessing Vanessa. Once the amulets were on I gave them the prison rule of not being allowed to hurt anyone or anything, and let them loose. The front door was locked whenever I wasn't using it, and so was the door to my inventory.

Dena, who I'd totally forgotten was present, looked on with horror. I figured I'd seal the deal and see how it went by casually informing her that I'm also a warlock and that Abby was a necromancer. She didn't bounce back into lovey dovey mode near as quickly as Caledra had for a bit of casual boorishness, but Communication talent said to let her sleep on it. "When you've worked through that, come back and tell me you love me. I think you'll be a great addition to the team."

I sent the druidesses to join the defensive perimeter at the portal; I'd need to figure out where to position my troops. Tomorrow. I drank a bit of water full of something Vanessa had provided to help me sleep. I'm done for today.