Assessing the Enemy

6/4

I went to speak with Vaelastrasz as quickly as possible, where we had placed him under the watchful eye of Ysera in the Emerald Dragonshrine. It seemed like the best place to stow someone that might be a manchurian agent: surrounded by people as strong or stronger than him. He/she didn't know of any traps, according to Natalie, but that only meant so much.

I was glad that I at least knew what the hell Nefarian's binding was now. From Aelthalyste's report, it seemed like a more advanced version of the orb of entrancement. I took advantage of every resource I had and looked over the Hypnosis App in the catalog, trying to work out exactly what they had seen.

The fact that he had multiple sources for the entrancing magic meant that he probably had at least the shareware upgrade, letting him make as many mini orbs of entrancement as he had materials for. The buzzing sound fit the bill for Subliminal Audio, which meant that he could passively advance the entrancement depth of anyone near it. Which meant that it was pretty likely that Darcell, Keryn, Varvara, and their handlers were all at hypnotic depth 4-5. Which sounds worse than it is. That means they are halfway to their first breakpoint. They weren't all that susceptible to anything yet, but I wasn't inclined to put anyone on a solo mission for days in Nefarian's territory.

More worrying were the changes to Vaelastrasz; he had some rather extreme changes made to him and he couldn't have been captured for more than a day or so. Barring something more horrifying like multiple bindings or him being able and inclined to do sex change magic without company assets, that meant that Nefarian had access to Concoctions, and he seemed inclined to use them to accelerate the capture of one person. They came in three forms: Aeromatic, ingestible, and injected. This looked like an injection to me, from the description.

"Injectables are drugs which must be directly introduced to tissues or the bloodstream, most commonly via direct injection. A full dose of an injectable will increase a target's Hypnotic Depth by 10 or, if at a Breakpoint, will break through it by increasing the target's Hypnotic Depth by 1. In addition to being able to force an absolutely debilitating level of emotional inducement, or significant body alterations, injectables are able to apply a single Hypnotic Depth 31-40 level or lower command or forcibly entrance a target for 1 hour."

I'm pretty sure the depth boosting is baseline, and he gets any one of those additional effects that he wants. I was aware of at least two that seemed to happen. He was physically female now, though his visage and self image both seemed to still be male, and his view of Nefarian and Alexstrasza was flipped. Vaelen was absolutely certain that Nefarian was his loving aspect and ruler, to whom he owed everything and would give anything, and that Alexstrasza, probably the kindest dragon in all of Azeroth, was a psychotic bioengineering monster that needed to be stopped. Swapping two people in someone's mind was a depth 31-40 command, and I had a sinking feeling that I'd be seeing more of it. The physical shift was, I was pretty sure, the first step towards giving Vaelen the Abby treatment; just a little rider effect for the real benefit, the depth booster. As a dragon, Nefarian would presumably want to surround himself with sexy dragon ladies. Which I get, to be clear, and can barely begrudge him. Vaelen seemed entirely unaware of his new biological sex, though; probably a mental block so he wouldn't fuss about it until he could be mentally shifted to a she.

Continuing my guesswork, it seemed unlikely Nefarian had VR helmets or the upgrades for them if he wasn't using one on Vaelen. I shuddered to think what three people he could be brainwashing that would totally overshadow Vaelastrasz. Megapixel was similarly unlikely, for the same reasons plus it's outrageous 150 credit price tag. I could only hope he didn't somehow drop 100 credits on Shovelware, which would probably let him turn any given jewelry store into a recruitment center instantly.

What concerned me most was how quickly this all happened. Imriss spoke to Vaelastrasz yesterday, and it seemed pretty likely that it was only sheer dumb luck that Nefarian hadn't known to extract a love confession out of Vaelastrasz. I was easing into the idea that he was, in fact, a newbie to this. I'd only needed a couple weeks to figure that one out, and Vaelen saw him as a semidivine father figure right now. It wouldn't have been hard. My heart was sinking. Anyone that I didn't have captured could be turned within a single day of dedicated effort by Nefarian. Anyone.

Capturing big names had gone from a nice little scavenger hunt to one of the most vital tasks I had, primarily because of resource denial. I'd snatched up a ton of the potential targets that had rebates or which were low hanging fruit, but not all. Not by half. Anyone I collared needed to be guarded until they were captured, and anyone I couldn't get to yet still needed to be observed and guarded asap. Most importantly, I needed to get to the dwarves. A billion gold was on the line.

I sent Jalinde a note about the Wildhammers. Most of the elves of Quel'Danil lodge were captured at this point, and they had some trade relationships with Aerie Peak. She thought there was a chance she could get in close and speak to Falstad, their Thane. If she could get him to take a necklace, or I could get people into Aerie Peak to start recruiting, I'd be golden. Either Aerie peak or Ironforge was probably going to be Vanessa's first assignment with her dedicated field recruitment team. The other would, in all likelihood, go to Talaada and *her* dedicated field recruitment team.

Moira would be giving Magni a necklace as a gift, intended to help reconcile. Neither of them actually hated the other, but their personalities sure as hell clashed. I'd need to start networking through Thargas and the like, mending bridges with the Dark Irons. It was going to be a hell of a project.

I also needed to get into Dalaran, but thankfully I had a back door available that wouldn't even require me to take down the dome: Korialstrasz, the prime consort of Alexstrasza, was on the Council of Six. It wouldn't be the fastest approach, but even uncaptured I was sure I could convince the Lifebinder to let her significant other know that a major brainwashing threat was in play. She had a chain around her neck, a favorable view of me if her ETE of 138 was anything to go by, and Nefarian was a known mutual enemy I could point at. It would be cruel, but I could probably also show her Vaelastrasz to drive home the seriousness of the situation. She'd need to go in disguise, and that will probably hurt.

Lorderon still needed some development; I had the most important person from the Scarlet Crusade (Sally the human resurrection bot) on my side, but I should probably start moving into Hearthglen next. It's the westernmost stronghold under the control of the Crusade, and if I could remember correctly its current ruler wasn't even that bad of a guy. By crusader standards, anyway.

The last two really serious places to send troops in were Gilneas and Silvermoon. Gilneas had its problems, but it was still a very strong human nation like Stormwind if we set aside the worgen situation. I think there were some night elf Druids headed into the area, trying to help with the worgen. They would be my method of entry; if they were already there I'd be sending an archdruid to help. If they weren't, I'd commission the diplomatic mission myself. In a perfect world, the doors in the Gilneas wall would open and I would send diplomats from the newly rebuilt city of Lordaeron, but no dice there.

Silvermoon was going to be a fun one. I wasn't sure exactly what the current situation was up north, but I doubted it was good. They were still hurting after the loss and corruption of the Sunwell, so I figured that the best thing to do was to leverage the Sunwell. Because, you see, right now the Sunwell was an attractive blonde girl in an unknown location and I had 50 credits.

Fuck if I knew how it happened, but after the Sunwell was destroyed during Warcraft 3 somehow the lingering arcane power coalesced into the form of a human girl. I'll be level with you: I know very little about her. I googled her once because she heroically sacrificed herself during a raid encounter and I felt bad that I had no clue who this person was. She seems like a basically decent person, she could pass for a randomly generated general goods vendor in Stormwind, and she has or will have a blue dragon boyfriend that will later become the leader of the blue dragonflight. That's basically all I've got. However, she has the potential to be the most powerful entity in my retinue with a bit of training.

Aegwynn (well, Doan now) and Ysera were the two front runners. Both tier 8, both incredibly powerful. Aegwynn got her power from a council of mages all channeling a portion of their power into her, permanently pumping her up. She was a genius before that, of course, but once she was made guardian she had all the power she needed as long as she approached any given situation intelligently. Let's say, eh, fifty of the top mages in Azeroth. People between Doan's old power level and Jaina's potential power level. A fraction of each of their power, without rendering themselves impotent, was quite a lot. The Sunwell blows that out of the water.

The Sunwell is a fragment of the Well of Eternity, which was essentially infinite. Five percent of essentially infinite is still pretty damn close to infinite for practical purposes, and Anveena held at least half of that five percent. Baseline, with (as far as I know) zero magical training or understanding of how to use it. Imagine, for a moment, someone with the deft proficiency and theoretical understanding of magic that Aegwynn has that had a functionally infinite supply of mana. I could have that with three days of training, and then I could have her use that insane power to kill literally any regional mission target for an upgrade.

After that, I could present her as what she was: a living incarnation of the Sunwell here to redeem the blood elves. By redeem, I of course mean freeing them of their endless hunger for mana. I have a few hundred high elves who can testify to how great the cure really is. I had absolutely no problem dropping 50 credits on that. The fact that I would probably get to fuck the Sunwell itself was, at most, a funny side benefit.

Of course, I had a few more things to do today. Mostly, I intended to talk to some bronze dragons and get some use out of this damn pen.