Killing Two Hours

5/10 late afternoon

The meeting to turn over the books had gone quite well. Nobody objected to the theft itself, only to the tremendous amount of attention it had garnered. Indeed, they were quite thrilled to have two new additions to the library. The Cult of the Damned was, of course, rather common and of severely limited use to their work, but both the musings of Natalie Seline and a scholarly text on the technical aspects of troll Voodoo were likely to bear fruit. Lady Cloyce was particularly interested in the detailed information on Voidwalkers, which reports indicated that the Horde had already begun employing widely. They seemed nearly as easy to bind as imps from how frequently they were appearing.

Drusilla had been given a slap on the wrist, a month of service to a higher warlock of her choice, and was firmly told to ensure that her reported new apprentice didn't get the idea that this was how they were to operate. The month of service came with a right to be trained; it was barely a punishment.

The choice of who to ask to apprentice oneself to is, of course, a difficult one. Usually one chooses based off of prior relationships, factional affiliation, what you can offer, and what their specialty is. Drusilla was choosing based off of a different paradigm. That of a serial killer. Who was isolated? Who was vulnerable? Who would she feel the most satisfied presenting to her master as his new conquest?

For that, the question was obvious. Ursula Deline was an arrogant noblewoman who thought herself far greater than she was. Certainly she was talented, and familiar with the art, more so than most in the alliance. Far more advanced than Drusilla herself, in fact. However, she had virtually no accomplishments.

Lady Deline was powerful, and dedicated to her craft. She was however dedicated to nothing else. A young widow of the third war, she treated the art of the warlock as an all consuming hobby. Of course, as the owner of the Slaughtered Lamb she was treated cordially for providing a place for them to congregate, but many in the coven privately held her in contempt. Studying the arcane as a hobby was all well and good, but Ursula delved into far darker secrets for no reason but the thrill of transgression.

As such, she had few close friends or allies among the coven. Oh sure, she had a few lackies. Hangers on. The occasional fellow noble who saw her as a peer based on her blood alone. She was more than happy enough to take on anyone who wished to learn from her, if only to lord her power over someone and have company on her "hunting excursions" gathering soul shards from beasts and murlocs. Drusilla, as a veteran and patriot, all but despised her, but she was tactically an excellent choice. Ursula Deline was known to provide free lodging in Stormwind and "appropriate clothing" to apprentices, she was wealthy, she was vain, she had virtually no personal understanding of enchantment, and she was starting to show signs of aging that she was desperate to hide.

It was only sheer luck that the Cult of the Damned hadn't approached the idiot woman with an offer of eternal youth and beauty already. When they arrived at her townhouse later this evening, all Drusilla would need to do would be to revert to a spry young beauty and explain a necklace that conferred eternal youth. She'd likely demand it be surrendered before the explanation was even over.

••••••••••

Keryn needed to make her move. She would lose two days if she had to go back and rest, and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with her. In the worst case scenario, she'd be caught and need to vanish. She was confident in her ability to find a hiding space that would last her ten seconds if things went fubar. So, she assassinated the grunt that was taking the bowl of slop to the prisoner while he took a shortcut through a canyon.

She snuck up on him with a long length of chain and quietly killed him. There had been a struggle, but she had every advantage she needed. The slop had clattered to the floor, but she scooped it back into the bowl before adopting her victim's face and clothes and trying to approximate his gait. She had always been far better at impersonating women for obvious reasons, but this didn't need to last her long.

The two bored guards greeted her by an orcish name, "huh. Looks like you dropped it, Azog." Keryn just shrugged, doing her best to say "so what" without needing to use her very much undisguised voice. Who cared if there was gravel in the gruel, what was he going to do, send it back to the chef? They laughed, clearly agreeing with the implied sentiment, as they let her past.

One guard came with her to watch the handoff, which was unfortunate for him. She pulled out a long, slender dagger she had coated with the fast acting paralytic poison she'd found in Bismark's stockpile and jabbed it into her companion's side once they were at the cage. Once the big brute had collapsed, she slit his throat and turned to Keeshan. "This is a rescue op. Stay quiet and cooperate, and we should be out momentarily."

Hearing a female voice with a Stormwind accent come out of a male orc's body, Corporal Keeshan was all ears. He stayed stock still while she picked the lock on his cage, eyeing the fallen orc's axe and shield. "No need for that. I've got a shortcut. Just cooperate." She pulled him out of the cage and lifted him off the ground. In moments she was back in Lakeshire, and so was Keeshan. Mission successful. She was going to bed.

••••••••••

"I'm telling you, you need to take this seriously. You will be on the hook too, if Nozara is displeased. I'm making sure of it."

"Oh? Really? And how will you prove I had anything to do with it? I'll assign you a smith of course, but why would I take special interest in your assignment? I have a mine to run, dear." Bavira was smirking. Of course she'd take her share of credit if all went well, she'd insist on it in fact, but here she was building up several layers of plausible deniability. Typical Sayaad; if they weren't throwing themselves at mortals they were doing everything in their power to insulate themselves from responsibility.

"Your smiths cut corners when you aren't watching them closely." Zelena crossed her arms, trying to assert herself, but she wasn't in a good position. Technically the two demonesses were equals, but where around fifty of the demons Zelena oversaw were barely more intelligent than the horses they resembled, Bavira oversaw several Gan'arg smiths in addition to dozens of Wyrmtongue miners. She could easily deflect blame for anything that happened onto her inferiors, whereas Zelena's stablehands made none of the executive decisions and had no technical skills or knowledge she lacked. It was easy to get them crucified for incompetence, but it didn't absolve her of much responsibility when she did.

In effect, Zelena was forced to take responsibility, and faced far more punishment even though she made fewer mistakes. The fact that she couldn't seduce the overseers certainly also contributed to why the satyr was in an inferior position to the smug succubus. Perhaps if she had more allies, or a better position, she could move with more certainty. Take more risks. The meeting went nowhere, except that Zelena left with a Gan'arg smith to take measurements for the felsteeds.

Her mind wandered. What if she made a pact with a warlock? A sufficiently pliable one, that would give her an opportunity to act in one of the mortal worlds. To be an independent vanguard, only needing to keep her summoner compliant with the Dark Titan's will. No. No no no. She wasn't strong enough to overpower a warlock's bindings if that happened. She would be a servant. A slave. Like she was now. Her eyes widened at that stray heretical thought, and she quite deliberately shifted her focus.

How could she make sure that the tiny engineer she'd been assigned would do his work properly? Perhaps threats? No, Bavira would never let her follow through on anything serious without reprisal. Maybe… maybe she could find a Sayaad willing to work for her? Soothe him and keep him focused on his work? Or a bribe? Or… she could give him direct credit and responsibility. Requisition not just his services, but the smith himself. Bavira would be furious, but Zalena could explain the importance of this work. Maybe suggest augmenting some of the unacceptably weak steeds with grafted technology.

Zalena donned a self satisfied smirk. Yes, she could salvage this situation. She could even come out ahead. She just needed to attack it from its flanks. How had she forgotten how to hunt large game? She really did need to get back to Azeroth somehow; she was losing her edge.

••••••••••

I wandered the city, enjoying the sights and sounds. I tried to drift around to various bars in the area where Bartleby supposedly was, Old Town, which was conveniently fairly near Auffrey if my map was anything to go by. I wasn't exactly being systematic or putting a lot of effort in, I didn't even actually ask anyone about him just in case it would be bad optics for Lord Bismark, but I didn't see him anywhere. Eh, maybe I'd come back as Otto after dinner. I had a plan if I could just find him.

I checked my necklace routinely, updating things here and there. Mary and Lillibeth hadn't had much success with finding soft draenei targets today. Maybe I needed to approach that settlement of "dreamers" and target them? They might not be as emotionally vulnerable, but they also might not lash out as much. At worst I'd approach them once I had a few more genuine "healed" Draenei to show them.

I was checking to see how many Shadowhide pendants had been found by the Lions, 3 so far, when I saw the new popup that Keryn had finished her assignment. I felt the small sphere plop into my pocket. I was up to two mission tickets again, but I didn't really hate any of my current assignments enough to dismiss them. It was a close call with 100 Wolf Moon, but I had just enough ideas clanging around in my head that I wanted to try first. For now I had some new and interesting missions to look at.

Stormpike Retirement

Convince Thelman Slatefist to dedicate his efforts to something other than military recruitment for Alterac Valley

Reward: Paralytic Poison

Hmm. Probably a no. Alterac valley was a hot war zone, and a professional recruiter sounded like he'd take a lot of convincing. Definitely more effort than I wanted to put in for something I already had. I swiped left.

WTB Liferoot

Help Maria Lumere, Stormwind herbalist, replenish her stock of Liferoot, providing her with at least 5 complete roots.

Reward: Temptress Bell

Interesting. I'd need to see how hard it was to get those. I checked my herb tracker and found that the nearest source for Liferoot was in Stranglethorn. Probably doable. More importantly, I needed to know what the hell a "Temptress Bell" did.

Temptress Bell- a chime that converts a single target's desire to harm the user into an equally powerful desire to fuck the user. The driving emotions do not change, only the subject's perception of what is an appropriate response. The effect lasts for roughly 24 hours. Entities 1 tier higher than the user will be affected for only one hour, 2 higher for one minute, and 3 higher will be affected only momentarily. One use.

Excuse me. Did I read that right? A magic bell that would make my enemies want to hate fuck me? I mean sure, it was one time use, and not everyone who wants to kill me would be an appealing sexual partner, but at minimum this would turn a fight into a far more survivable encounter. I was pretty sure that I was tier four or five, so this would have *some* effect on almost anyone I am remotely likely to encounter unless I started picking fights with old gods and dragon aspects. Hell, if I had this in my back pocket and Onyxia showed up looking for my head it would, at least, buy me long enough to nope out of there. I was doing this mission. ASAP. Hell, I was going to see if there was an auction house right now. Eh. On my way over I might as well check the new regional mission.

Redridge Mountains: Morganth

Reward: Alluring Whisper

Oh neat. Sexy voice. It would hopefully have effects other than making me really good at seducing people by talking to them, but even just having a voice that everyone, or even just every woman, actively enjoys listening to would be useful. Probably. I mean; I had rented out the Lions to secure Redridge anyway so this was just a bonus.

Good news everyone. I blew all my gold on buying Liferoot through a portal network run by goblins. Was this a good idea? Probably not. I'm broke until I capture another relatively rich person or start siphoning money off of Eva, who is effectively a single mother with two kids. It was probably fine; everyone I sent to join the Lions got room and board, and Vanessa was literally waiting in the hills near Moonbrook for a necklace to give to her father tomorrow morning. Oh yeah. And my plans to take over the person who controlled the throne of Stormwind at the moment. I was definitely going to need to sit down and work *that* out.

I made back a few silver by selling them to miss Lumere at a massive loss, but hey. I had a bell now, a new minor mission, and I got to see what the company was offering me to take Onyxia down.

They aren't using them!

Steal three pieces of enchanted equipment from the guards in the infirmary of the Stormwind stockades.

Rewards: Mission region selection

Looks like a job for Keryn and Darcell? I definitely didn't want to be caught stealing from injured riot police, but mission region selection was definitely on my Christmas list. Jumping around teleporting to people to give them missions didn't seem the most efficient method. Almost any change would be an improvement.

I started heading back to Oldtown; my time was up, to be honest I might end up a bit late, and there was only one thing left to check.

Stormwind, Lady Katrana Prestor

Deluxe mission ticket, Dragonblood Symbiote, performance talent

Dragonblood Symbiote

A single "globster" symbiote with a draconic theme. Only capable of fusing with one individual, capturing them in the process if applicable.

Hell yeah; nothing amazing but a pretty good spread. I didn't need any encouragement, but this just went from a goal to a priority. Uh. Tomorrow. Yeah. Or at least I can start putting together a proper plan tomorrow.