Not What it Looks Like

5/18 afternoon

The Night Elves were, unsurprisingly, fairly miffed with me for trapping their comrade in the Emerald Nightmare. They didn't know or trust me, and I only had one defense: the truth. Thankfully, it worked.

"I didn't know it would do that. I'm no enchanter and it hasn't had that effect on anyone else that has handled it, myself included. I brought it to her because I wanted to try to figure out its significance, why this specific item was particularly targeted by the Nightmare."

Shandris Feathermoon was not terribly impressed with this explanation. "It was reckless. Something that dangerous needed to be studied by a whole team, half a dozen enchanters backed by priestesses keeping watch."

"What would you have suggested, if you'd cared enough to speak with me to find out about the situation?" The jab was a bit petulant, but pointing out that she'd kept me waiting put her on the defensive. "It is an urgent matter, so, rather than sitting around or forcing my company on a general that was clearly too busy for such trivialities, I just asked for assistance. I told her everything I knew. She seemed to think wearing gloves would protect her. I trusted her expertise. Do you have a whole team of enchanters and priestesses available that could have worked together?"

"No," she admitted, "Xylinnia is the only one stationed here. Proper precautions would have required that we wait for our reinforcements."

"What reinforcements?"

"High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind and her personal retinue. If purification is what is required, the power of Elune should serve."

Huh. That might actually work; Elune is on the short list of beings that genuinely qualify for the title of god in this world, and she was very fond of Tyrande. "Oh, good. When should she arrive?"

"By hippogriff, my messenger should arrive in two days. Then between three and five days for Tyrande to arrive. We will know the precise timetable in four days, when a messenger arrives back."

"Alright. If the delay will be that long, I can use this to cleanse Xylinnia in the meantime." I pulled out my amulet. "It can take up to a week. Craftsmen among my flight have crafted amulets like these that can purge the effects of the nightmare, among other things. We are planning on using it on Taerar, but you are right that Lady Tyrande may be even better. I'll need to leave after our meeting; this isn't the only place on Azeroth dealing with the effects of the Nightmare." I was being a bit pushy, but between my lures and the fact that I was outside of her chain of command, communication talent thought I'd be fine as long as I remained civil.

"Ah. Apologies." She didn't sound very sorry to me. "Go ahead."

I put the necklace around Xylinnia's neck, latching it carefully. "Would you prefer if I made it paralyze her so that the enemy can't use her against us, or would you prefer to just keep an eye on her so that when she recovers she can get back to business as usual immediately? We haven't used one of these for this purpose on an elf before."

"You will not paralyze someone under my command to cure an affliction you exposed her to." Shandris snapped.

"Of course. Then watch her carefully. Many of my own kin will likely die in the coming days because they would kill us otherwise. I'd paralyze each and every one of them if I could, for as long as necessary." She looked away, shamed.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be cruel."

"I'm sure you didn't. Regardless. I have other duties to attend to. I'll be back tomorrow."

I walked out. I received a few very covert appreciative glances. Nothing extreme; I wouldn't have even noticed if it weren't for communication talent, but apparently an environment where women outnumbered men four to one for extended periods of time was fertile ground for lures, even if I wasn't doing much to leverage them. Maybe I'll investigate further when things are less tense; I'll definitely want a nice bit of jewelry around Shandris's neck at some point.

••••••••••

We spent more time working with Talaada than advancing my own understanding that day. Sadie was clearly spooked by something, so I decided to let it lie and had her teach me something else holy magic related. She could process what she was feeling for one day; just because she wouldn't actually be traumatized thanks to stress defense, didn't mean I wanted to pressure her too hard. I didn't really want anyone reaching into the minds of nightmare infused creatures until I had corruption defense.

Holy nova was an interesting spell. It was a sphere of holy energy, just a burst of The Light, completely unfocused and directionless. Using it at all was essentially an act of faith, haphazardly adding holy energy to the situation in the hope that it will somehow help. Usually it would, but very inefficiently. It would mend allies, burn enemies, clean surfaces, and illuminate the surroundings as appropriate, but mostly at a surface level.

You may be asking, why the hell would I want a spell that is inefficient, random, and weak? Because it's incredibly easy to cast and it was subtle. Because it was just a flood of unfocused holy energy, I could use it with barely a thought. Plus, it was hard to track where it came from; there was no flash of light, no magic word, no hand signs. Just a bunch of small magical phenomena mysteriously happening. If it weren't for the fact that it would exhaust my mana with not much more than a minute of sustained casting, I'd be using it all the time.

As things stood, it would probably function as a panic button if I was ever pressed hard in melee, just because I could keep pouring energy into it without paying much attention. A quick heal or a surprise burn on my enemy would give me an edge if I was in a desperate struggle. I imagine that if I get trained by a Paladin I'll have a few more quick spells to cast in melee, but for now intermittent holy novas will have to fill that niche.

It also had a useful side benefit; I could burn my mana out before bed without a target. Annetta had told me a long time back that my mana capacity worked like a muscle; I could theoretically strain it, but working it out until I was tired would help it develop. I was also cheating with soul talent, making massively disproportionate gains from basically just discussing magic over lunch, but it couldn't hurt to develop it normally as well. At worst it wouldn't accomplish much, at best I'd develop a higher mana capacity which could save my life.

Before she headed back to Light's Hope Chapel, I took Sadie's hand. "I know you are holding something back. Remember what we talked about. Figure out how you can control it."

She nodded, biting her lip, clearly wanting to agree more than she did. "I'll do what I can. But this one scares me. There are… creatures. In people's minds. They feed on them, and when I look at them they notice. They resent me seeing them." She shuddered.

I gave her a hug. "If you need backup, we are always available. Even against the Scourge. Especially against them, actually. I do have one mission for you, though."

"Yes? What is it?"

"I need to know who the enchanters are at Light's Hope Chapel, and once I know who they are I absolutely need to collar them. The Argent Dawn would not understand our mandate, so they can never know what these amulets do until I'm ready for everyone to know." She nodded, and returned through the "front door" back to her quarters at the chapel.

••••••••••

Thanks to Shadris getting Tyrande involved, the decision of who to attack first had been made for me. The newly swole Onyxia backed up by Ysondre, Talaada, and me should be more than capable of taking Emeriss on. The problem would be the small army that may have accumulated during my healing process, which I'd need to rely on my ground troops to handle. Of course I didn't actually need to fight all of them, just remove the nightmare dragon.

I'd received some modestly good news on that subject; the portal in Duskwood seems to have shut down. It was still being guarded by a ramshackle mismatch of undead led by Stitches, just in case something else came out. It didn't seem like it would, but I didn't want some crazy nightmare druids running around my turf. It seems that removing the nightmare dragon from its portal shut off reinforcements, which was great other than the lack of new minions in the form of Abby enslaving druid spirits. None had ever come through the portal after that initial push as far as I could tell.

It looked like I'd be fighting Emeriss in the Hinterlands on the 21st when Ysondre was ready, followed by Taerar on the 24th or to 26th when Tyrande was ready, then I'd need to get into position and take on Lethon on the 27th with the full force of my hopefully newly expanded retinue and a dollar store Xenomorph. I felt pretty good about it, but I absolutely could not fuck this up at any step or I might not be able to manage this in time.

For that reason, I needed to expedite the transfer of people from Quel'Lithien to Quel'Danil. I needed the Farstriders at my command and ready to fight before Ysondre was awake. I didn't have a moment to lose.