Hookups

6/9 late afternoon

Pai mingled with the lords and ladies of Alterac; the "party" was rather scant compared to the ones in Stormwind, but the Syndicate was built around the earnest belief that they deserved to hold onto luxury. If the parties stopped completely, that would mean the whole organization had gone bankrupt.

The damned recruiter was rather enjoying herself back home again. She'd put on her yellow bandanna and signet ring, and it was like she'd never left. Even better, her new organization was unfathomably easier to recruit for. The Brotherhood had a neutral-to-positive reputation, it's method of control was relatively easy and subtle, and most importantly she was given tools to assist her. Shapeshifting of course, and the "Red Chain of Fate" which was a godsend.

It was difficult to control, adapting slowly if she tried to change who she was looking for, but it was dramatically easier to find good targets when she could tell at a glance who would be willing to take her on as a mistress and dominatrix. There were more among the syndicate that would be interested in such an arrangement than one might think. Many of them were not actually nobles, but sorting through the chaff here was drastically easier than avoiding the devout in Stormwind.

The scarlet missionaries were of course looking for men and women open to a religious experience that would give them power and connections. They found themselves in a target rich environment, and unfortunately they had no way to tell the difference between nobles who would sincerely pledge themselves to Talaada and jumped up peasants who saw both the Syndicate and the Scarlet Crusade as convenient stepping stones. One group could be captured in a day or two, the other could take half a week or more. Pai wished them luck, offering them suggestions to narrow their scope. They, in turn, tried to mask their disgust at a member of the Cult of the Damned, as if they were any better than her.

Pai sidled up to Vardus. He was ostensibly a Baron, but his lands had fallen into disrepair. Practically speaking he was just a quartermaster now, but he still had his hollow title. More importantly, he apparently liked girls with a bit of meat on their bones and was open to submission in bed. He'd do for today's assignment.

••••••••••

Stevie had another batch of hybrids for me, and from his message there were some irregularities he needed to go over. We were starting with the easy ones, though.

"The Watcher/Sayaad hybrid seems to be an absolute all around physical upgrade from the Domme model we have been using. Both physically and, unexpectedly, with the Sayaad's magic. The "charm" spell normally requires nearly all of a Sayaad or Domme's focus if they wish to maintain it. Watchers appear to be naturally inclined towards emotional compartmentalization; compared to what Bishop Selene is capable of the effect is modest, but a watcher variant Domme should be more able to defend themselves while maintaining a charm. Adding that to the dramatic increase in durability, mass, strength, and size makes the Watcher variant a nearly strict upgrade."

"Nearly?"

"They are awfully large. Nearly twice as tall as a tauren and proportionally only slightly slimmer." Ok. We will need to swap them out for indoor fights. I can live with that, the chargers are already practicing to fight in their visages for tunnel fights. I turned to the secretary Kathra'Natir had sent along, a busty Domme snappily dressed in one of Valeera's vampire hunter outfits. "Have the Dommes practice in both tauren and Watcher variants, but keep at least one in four in the smaller variant at any given time." I trusted the Dreadlord to refine that to something a bit more professional. "So, next?"

"Two variants including elements of black and bronze dragon, as well as Watcher. Watcher has proven to have quite a few compatible variants, but we are focusing on the most promising. Both High Elves and Gnomes can pair well with this trio, though there is very little physical effect upon the true body."

"Yeah, gnomes are pretty much all brains compared to a dragon or a watcher. No offense."

"None taken! In fact, I've taken on the gnomish variant myself." Stevie turned into a modestly sized copper dragon with metallic scales, while the girl providing the demonstrations turned into a nearly identical one that happened to be slightly longer and more snakelike. "The Bronze dragonflight has a shockingly accurate internal clock; it's even more convenient than the stopwatch in our amulet! Most of the team is going with copper dragon. The primary difference is that the gnomish variant has far better memory and spatial awareness, while the elf variant is predictably better at manipulating magic directly. In all cases, the result is a massive increase in durability and strength."

I took a copper dragon form myself. It's a damn fine combination of traits, and I suspected quite a few people would adopt it. The intelligence boost and internal clock seemed good enough to be worth pushing it onto my shadow operations and logistics teams, and visages went a long way to making any form practical. I passed on the recommendations through Kathra'Natir's secretary, and continued watching the rest of the presentation.

Nerubians could pair well with both Nathrezim and Doomguard, both of whom were physically powerful winged demons with a flair for magic. The primary benefit I saw there was another form my demons could take; nerubians were large, but not much bigger than a centaur and much better at fighting in enclosed spaces. The Forsaken seemed to be embracing the Nathrezim as their signature demonic form, due to its utility to their people, while Doomguards had so far proven extremely resistant to hybridization. Doomguard/nerubian hybrids would be by far the least fuckable thing I had ever allowed into my retinue, but they should be reasonably good at murder so I could forgive that. Alas, nerubians were another casualty of my success. Their two greatest assets, a rugged exoskeleton and a near complete immunity to mind control, were both pretty easy for me to find or provide elsewhere. Even scarab lords like Anub'Arak wouldn't be dramatically stronger than a charger, and they were their own subspecies of hero unit.

"So, what about Chromatic dragons?" Stevie waggled his hand in a so-so gesture.

"They've been trouble. Chromatics are themselves a hybrid species, and not a particularly well optimized one. The Auto-optimization goes a long way towards stabilizing it, but it's on a hair trigger. If we try to adjust anything the results can be messy. We've gotten to know Tony pretty well in the process."

"So why do you need to make adjustments then? Auto Balancing seems to work pretty well."

Stevie seemed almost insulted by the question. "Well for one, sir, our orders were to investigate and optimize. For another, each individual seems to manifest different powers drawn from the various dragon subspecies at random, and if they have more than two such abilities their body and mind begins rapidly deteriorating regardless. Occasionally a stable combination of three is formed, such as Miss Gyth, but that appears to be a form of genetic lottery. We have, however, managed to reliably reproduce her and created a hybrid based upon precise genetic structure and a few other genetic additives to help ease the initial transformation. Penny, are you ready to demonstrate?" The pigtailed girl nodded with excitement.

"The optimized physical frame of the Titanic watcher, the regenerative capabilities of a troll, the high mana capacity of a high elf, and the stable genetic code of a green dragon. This combination, already potent on its own, was then spliced with Gyth's exact genetic sequence. This combination requires a preset to allow all changes to be made simultaneously, or the careful optimization that the dreaming lady Ysera was able to provide."

Penny grew taller, curvier, and more colorful. She gritted her teeth, clearly in pain as her body shifted dramatically, but not so much as to be incapacitated. Her skin flaked off, revealing metallic scales and skin underneath even as small wings sprouted from her back with an unpleasant ripping noise. The torn skin mended itself in seconds. After several painful minutes of transformation, Penny straightened up and gave me a reassuring smile. She was nearly ten feet tall, and her skin was a patchwork of colored metallic skin and scales like a dragon.

https://imgur.com/a/fxXixgq

"This form, which to be clear is a single form that we have optimized using Gyth as a template, rather than one specific to Penny, is extremely optimized for melee combat. The scaly bits are easily able to take a bullet from a dwarven rifle with only moderate damage, which is then regenerated within a few minutes without assistance. More importantly, she has access to the natural abilities of the blue, green, and red dragon subspecies. Fire that can be used to harm or heal, sleeping gas, and the creation of icy blasts being the simplest and most prominent applications."

"I assume these abilities are easy to learn?"

"At a basic level, yes. It takes a bit more time and effort to really master them, but they are fairly intuitive." So. Iron scaled, regenerating, magically gifted dragon girls who could pick up a solid spread of secondary powers with minimal investment. The only drawback, that they all needed to be essentially sisters in terms of genetics, was hardly a drawback at all from my point of view. Penny demonstrated that they could still take on visages, so the fact that their combat forms were interchangeable wasn't even particularly dehumanizing.

I decided my elite Fists would consist entirely of these chimeric draconids. A bunch of identical dragongirls who nonetheless have entirely different skill sets might confuse the enemy; there would be only the slightest visual distinction between a zergling, a queen, and a mountain giant once the fighting started. "Keep playing with this line of reasoning. More variants would definitely be good, but so far this is a great job. Any movement on retrofitting Naxxramas?"

"I've got some ideas for how to power the engine more ethically, but none of them are exactly cheap."

"Great. Let Irma know what you need. We might even take out another loan."

"Mostly I need gold. Lots and lots of gold. Making a bank of power cores should be able to get it into the air without… uh… soul destruction." I had a creeping suspicion that I could power Naxx with my ghostly waifus thanks to soul defense, but I doubted that would be pleasant for anyone involved, so I wasn't even bringing it up. Instead I nodded. "Alright. And what about weaponry?"

"Well, the best option I could find is relatively short range, but we could build them on the exterior of the vessel with their own power supply. A few dozen gnomish death rays built into the bottom of the necropolis would allow us to do an effective bombing run by sweeping low over an enemy. Meanwhile we can build a few platforms on top and fill them with anti-air weaponry, and of course stockpiles of bombs that we can launch during our low sweeps."

"Contact Gazlowe. I have a suspicion he might have some insights into energy based weaponry." In Heroes of the Storm, Gazlowe's whole kit was built around turrets, lasers, and bombs, so hopefully the recently captured trade lord of Ratchet would have some ideas.

••••••••••

Keryn scouted the Obsidian Dragonshrine, carrying Varvara along to check minds. According to Ironaya, this place was where Nefarian had teleported out from. The black dragonspawn present were mostly captured by the enemy according to a few possession checks by Varvara, but there were a few black dragons that he'd left with entrancing crystals. Keryn approached in stealth, carefully not looking at the glowing gemstone. Instead, after a read through of the hypnosis app in the shop, she borrowed Varvara's amulet, put it around the dragoness's wrist. She checked this dragoness's profile; her name was Nalice and she was at a hypnotic depth of 26.

"Can you hear me, Nalice?" Keryn whispered.

"I can hear you." The dragon mumbled, staring at the deadly crystal. Of course, the description on the app never said that it only left the target vulnerable to the user's suggestions.

"I need you to listen carefully. You are going to go to Wyrmrest temple when we finish talking. Do you understand?"

"Yes. I will go to the temple."

"You will wait in an out of the way location, such as a side room. Do you know of a place like that?"

"Yes. The eastern balcony."

"Good. You will go to the eastern balcony, wear your visage, and when someone snaps their fingers and says 'brotherhood of love' you will fall into a trance, just like you are in now."

"Yes. I will fall into a trance when someone snaps and says brotherhood of love."

Keryn took off the bracelet. It probably wouldn't be needed. "Alright. You should probably wake up and head out, then. Forget about our little chat, would you?" She vanished into the shadows while the dragoness headed out. She spoke into her amulet. "Did you catch all of that?"

"Yeah. We'll send someone to pick her up." Keryn nodded with satisfaction before moving on to the next entranced dragon.

••••••••••

Geoff was feeling pretty good about himself. Now that lady Prestor and that Eva lady had left the class, the only person outdoing him was that blonde girl. Arcanist Doan said that he was one of his most promising students in this class, and had been selected to receive a reward of some kind. When he entered the small cloister, he saw a rather fetching black haired woman staring blankly at the wall while a priestess held her hand.

https://imgur.com/a/OrLUbnX

"Good, good. You're here. Now, we were able to borrow an amulet for this, so I'm hoping you can make good use of it. Use it to turn into a black dragon while I prime her. Alright Nalice, this is Geoff. When you wake up, you're going to find him extremely attractive. Very, very attractive. You will want to have sex with him in your visage, understood?"

"Want sex…"

"With Geoff, yes."

"Want sex with Geoff."

"When he gives you an amulet, you will feel tremendous affection for him, and when you put it on you will be in awe of him. You will want to become his consort."

"Consort?"

"You will love and respect him. He will be so impressive and attractive that nothing else will be acceptable to you."

Nalice grudgingly nodded. "If he's impressive, acceptable mate."

"Not just acceptable. The best. Repeat." It took a few more repetitions to push her into an enthusiastic affirmation, but the fact that he'd be of her species and reeking of magic was a large point in his favor. When she was released from her trance, she looked the archmage in training up and down appreciatively. When he handed her the amulet, she smiled, and put it on at his urging. Her mouth opened as she looked at him like some kind of god, stepping in closer to him.

Geoff enthusiastically did his duty to help capture the black dragon. He would even be allowed to keep her around as a bodyguard and lover when she wasn't otherwise needed.