Recruitment, Book Keeping, and Scarlet Shenanigans

5/29 Night

8 women and one man stood in the Southshore graveyard as Helcular was exhumed. Half of them were uncomfortable with what they were supposed to do, but the other half found a bit of grave robbing to be almost quaint. Stabbing the rod into the rotting corpse took a strong constitution, so Eliza handled it. The overwhelming dark power flowed out of the rod and into the man, animating his body as he achieved a rudimentary form of lichdom.

He jolted awake, taking his rod and standing up. "I have risen!" Helcular's eyes were unfocused, seeming to grow only slightly more aware with his second sentence. "Southshore shall pay in blood." Then he began chanting a spell to reanimate the corpses of the graveyard en masse as his dark thralls.

"Nope. None of that." Abby cut off his air supply with a tendril of dark energy. He might not need to breathe to exist, but he still needed air to speak the words of dark power; there was a workaround, but he didn't know it yet. He looked at her with outrage, which became far more intense as Prudence wrapped her own amulet around his neck. His entire body seized up, Tessa and Eliza grabbed him from either end, and he was carried through into the apartment. His mind was too strong to be easily dominated by the necromancers, so he would instead get to wait in the closet until he was ready to be a good boy.

••••••••••

After successfully killing an angry earth elemental, the next thing on Darcell's to-do list was to find a Tauren man named Braug Dimspirit. That had taken half of the day even with pretty good directions to his house, just from travel time. Braug had wanted, of all things, for her to steal a book from a night elf barrow den, read it, and bring it back to him.

Sneaking in had been easy, and it had been a reasonably interesting read; dragons were neat, and he was right. She really should learn more about the world around her. He'd asked her a few trivia questions to make sure she'd absorbed the contents of the book, then sent her to the next stop: a forsaken Historian who, as it turned out, was already in the retinue.

She'd stayed the night with old Parqual Fintallis. Capture had restored his body substantially, so other than the fact that he didn't breathe he just came off like any old duffer. He let her sleep on his bed; he only had it because it felt wrong to have a home without one. It, a chair, and whole walls full of bookshelves were the only things in his tiny apartment. The old historian even kept a ragged old teddy bear on his night stand. His daughter's, apparently. Poor guy.

Her final, most difficult task made Darcell laugh. She was to assemble a team and strike into the Scarlet Monastery, stealing one of the texts they had in their great library. She was to study it, internalize it, and return it to him. Probably for another trivia hour. Sure old man. Sure. It'll be done tomorrow. She didn't think it would bother him that it was way easier than he expected. She suspected he just wanted another book for his library.

•••••••••••

Varvara submitted her report to spymistress Vanessa. In it she argued that the Kolkar were probably the most mentally and socially vulnerable clan of centaur in Desolace, though she knew that a few other ghosts were doing something similar for the other clans. They had an extremely blunt culture of the strong dominating the weak, few allies of any kind, and despite their women being the only ones allowed to study magic, they gave them almost no respect or social power. Magic was seen as a dirty, dishonorable way to gain power, only acceptable in soft, weak mares. Further, they hated everyone outside of their clan, with others of the same species getting only slightly less distaste than avowed enemies like the tauren.

The worst part was that this was all from the point of view of a pair of their clan members, male and female, that Vara had possessed and captured. They saw it all as normal, but as far as Vara was concerned they should be beaten into submission and nothing of value would be lost in the process.

The woman she had captured suspected that the mares would easily fall in line behind a new leader if offered an improved standard of living. Very little tied them to their current mates but fear and social convention. If they introduced young centaur stallions into the equation who combined strength, attractiveness, and even a hint of respect for the fairer sex, all things that the amulets could grant or enforce? The mares would flock to this new faction, which would be able to defend its claims with coordinated action and teamwork backed by all of the strongest shaman of the clan. Then, many young males would want to join the side that had all the pretty women and won all the battles, even if it did mean that they needed to learn respect.

It seemed plausible enough; if it didn't work, the attempt would still go a long way towards capturing the Kolkar or forming a new clan with their chosen philosopher at the head. After all, it all came down to strategic mass capture. The PR campaign would just make it easier to keep the ones that weren't captured yet in line.

••••••••••

As I hoped, the minor mission was done when I checked my app. Unsurprisingly, a woman that can shapeshift can usually convince a single straight man to have sex with her. The rewards were good, too, though more proof that I've been desensitized. The mission ticket essentially didn't exist, the skill chip would probably be passed around the people doing construction back at the Twilight Grove, and the full heal would probably be put to use eventually. Probably. The next mission was in Loch Modan; a strategic choice, looking for easy regional missions. Durotar and Mulgore would be up next for the same reason.

I Dig the Beard

Capture Mountaineer Roghan of Loch Modan through love confession; no mental influences are allowed.

Reward: fertility calibration

Oh easy, I just send a ghost and- wait. No. Pass. The reward was something I might want someday, but I've been here for a month and a half. Contraceptives are enough for me to start with and I got those as a free door prize, I don't really need at-will magical super fertility. I'm fairly sure that I could impregnate my girls the old fashioned way if I really wanted to.

Mercenaries

Provide Magistrate Bluntnose with at least 10 troops to garrison his town, with the full intent that they will remain there full time for at least a month.

Reward: Rabbit Insignia, Ogres will shift in presentation to more closely align to the anime conception of oni. This will not alter their culture or capabilities (other than being more socially accepted/desired) in any way.

Rabbit insignia- rearranges a targets priorities, placing physical pleasure or sexual reproduction at the absolute top of the list, reducing the importance of anything else and outright eliminating any mutually exclusive desires (such as wishing to maintain a vow of chastity.)

Hell yeah. That's an easy one. In fact…

I sent a note to Sarah Ladimore to hand pick ten members of the Rampant Lions and have them pack up and go to my agent in Loch Modan to start a new branch there. It would take a few hours to knock this mission out, so it should be just about done when I'm assigning duties tomorrow morning. I cast about for someone outside of my already-unlocked area. First person I saw was Tony's expedition in Stranglethorn, so that's what I went with; I'd get someone to go to Durotar or Thunder Bluff tomorrow. Probably Norin. With that lined up, I turned to other developments.

Hillsbrad Foothills: Kormok, ghostly Ogre Necromancer

Rewards: 5 credits, Slightly Off Lady Blaumeux, Seal of Joy, the spirits of Purgation Isle will be laid to rest

Slightly Off: The process of creating individuals based off of source material tends to include hundreds of iterations to get the process down. One in a million souls will prove particularly resistant to reformatting, resulting in unusual and persistent personality quirks which remain regardless of other changes. As the catalog for this setting is, as of yet, sparse, we will be offering some of these unusual companions as rewards to pad out our options. Unless they receive a powerfully positive reaction, these will not remain in the final product. Have fun. -Auriel

I have no idea what Purgation Isle is, but this sounds like a job for my necromancers. Looking at my map, it seems that there's a small island near Southshore. Apparently haunted. Neat. The credits, the seal, and the high Executor were all going to get use pretty much immediately. The only problem was that I needed my necromancers elsewhere. After I've gotten Eranikus safely out of the Sunken Temple, finishing that mission, then Purgation Isle next, I guess.

As for the Slightly Off Lady Blaumeaux? Well, hopefully she's still good at killing things and will follow my orders. The original didn't have particularly strong characterization, so I wasn't too attached. Blaumeaux was… well, is one of the Four Horsemen, the most elite death knights of the Plaguelands. Unless she was catatonic or prone to murdering her own allies, having one of my own could be only good. Even if I somehow get a version that is terrible at fighting, she's probably pretty damn hot, being an undead in this world. If the absolute worst case scenario is that I get 5 credits, a moderately useful magic item, credit for a good deed, a regional upgrade, and a useless novelty waifu? That's a damn good deal.

Of course, I had other missions to go over as well. First the Moderate one.

Really Just Misunderstood

Without mind altering magic, establish a rapport with the Bloodscalp troll tribe. This mission will be completed when you can openly enter the city of Zul'Kunda safely while in your primary persona, escorted by at least 5 of your non-troll retinue members.

Rewards: 1 credit, Bottled Consent

Hard but potentially doable, and I definitely like bottled consent. And the next major mission?

Romeo and Juliet

Release the spirit of Zaetar, first son of Cenarius. Bonus if you accomplish this goal without harming or capturing Princess Theradras.

Reward: 10 Credits, Lunara

Bonus: Deluxe Mission Ticket, 5 Credits

Ah. Great. Theradras is a particularly powerful earth elemental who drained life from the world around her. She's also the ultimate mother of all Centaur, barring retcons. She and a Keeper of the Grove by the name of Zaetar had a very ill advised love affair; the result was the Centaur. He'd been sealed away in spirit form by Theradras at that point, preventing him from resurrecting himself primarily because she didn't want to be left alone. Well, there are far stronger beings Azeroth, but a princess of earth would be yet another feather in my cap. Shame she is hideous, but we have ways of addressing that.

I didn't think I had the discipline to not capture her, so I just wrote off the bonus objective. Getting the 10 credits and moving on would be far more valuable than holding out for a deluxe mission ticket, especially once I've finished Livin the Emerald Dream and needed another grand mission. If anything, this mission seemed a little undertuned for a major mission at this point.

••••••••••

Lividia had progressed enough to get a field assignment with her own team. It was a team of 6, evenly split between men and women. Sally had personally selected them from among those that were most in awe of Lividia, so they were almost as subservient as she deserved. It did mean that she had to be very careful with them, and she couldn't slip away to do her nightly undead purge. Instead she'd be going out with this group and purging the undead together.

They needed to learn their true place in the world before they could really be useful, of course, so she seeded the idea that they were going to go and meet the prophet that gifted her the powers of the light she had. It was a word Talaada spoke with an appropriate level of reverence, so Lividia thought it would work when speaking of her king.

She knew enough of the Scarlet Dogma to correct the problems with it. They honestly thought the central authority in their lives was some kind of abstract personified force. Hah! Of course not. It was her king, whether they knew it was entirely irrelevant. She spent most of the first few hours of their patrol priming them, especially the girls, for their initiation.

They killed a few undead while they traveled through the woods, and Lividia practiced restraint; it wouldn't do to explode in mixed company. Interestingly, the nearly manaless spells Sally had learned and taught her to summon a cross or stream of holy fire did not cause escalation in the staff. It was still painful for a moment as it tried to flood her body with a tiny trickle of light, but not enough to actually harm her. This deserved more testing.

By the time her team was ready to set up camp, Lividia's King had decided on a course of action. He simply walked up to the small band of trainees, and Lividia immediately fell to her knees and proclaimed her love for him. The six took one look at their imperious team lead, one look at the physical specimen of a man that stood before them radiating a sense of holiness (actually just the exact smell of the cathedral's ceremonial incense), and followed Lividia's lead.

He walked up to each of them and gave them a blessing, and they rose stronger, wiser, and more beautiful than before. They were invited into his sanctum, where he took their team leader and their mage to his room to bless them with his seed. The other five, suddenly flush with energy and commanded to entertain themselves, worked out their own sexual repressions before falling asleep together in his guest room. In the morning they would return to their patrols as true champions of the light.