ALL NOVEL Good Food, Good Company
4/27 morning
Waking up with a pair of naked beauties wrapped around me was a new experience for me, but a welcome one. I didn’t really want to move, but I eventually get bored when I’m sitting idly so I shifted slightly to allow me to make skin to skin contact with Drusilla’s necklace and did some planning.
I checked that each of my ladies were healthy and proceeding steadily along the path towards my retinue, and confirmed that I was not getting a sixth mission until I took care of some of my current ones.
I was probably going to detour here in Goldshire for a day to try to do a few missions, but if I was quick I think I could probably jump Abercrombie, spend a week in his shack pretending to be him, and get to Lakeshire in time to volunteer to join the assault on Stonewatch Keep. If not, I might get to find out exactly how penalties work and hopefully they wouldn’t be too brutal. Or, you know, improvise something.
Of course this was all based on a fairly dangerous assumption on my part: that I could get to and take down Abercrombie. Hopefully level ranges weren’t quite as strict as they were in the game, or a randomly selected giant spider in Duskwood would be able to kill all three of us without really trying. If that were the case, however, I don’t think that a pair of low level spellcasters would have been able to make up the difference in martial ability between the notoriously high level starting zone guards and the pathetically weak starting zone bandits. If a single random skeleton slaughters us after that, I’ll have some choice things to say in my feedback.
Instead I’d probably be dealing with the far less gamified but equally dangerous situation of massive hordes of marauding ghouls roaming the countryside. If I could deal with those, by which I of course mean mostly avoid them, I had a plan for the Embalmer. If I didn’t have a plan, I’d be headed to Redridge. First, however, I had work to do here.
When I checked my inventory for a new necklace, I didn’t find one. Of course I didn’t; Anetta, Darcell, Lividia, Auffrey, and Tony made five. All but Lividia were my allies already, sure, but even Darcell hadn’t actually been captured yet. I wasn’t getting another necklace until Darcell or Annetta formally joined my retinue. Inconvenient, but unless I freaked her out Darcell would be wearing the team jersey by tonight. I guess I was relying on Drusilla’s amethyst confection if I needed to wear something today.
I wasn’t in any rush to wake them up, but Drusilla was awake within a few minutes of me stirring. I had a thought and went to the notepad in the app, mentally dictating the words “can you see this.” She didn’t immediately respond, so I whispered “notepad” while nodding at the gems. She snuck an arm up to touch it, unfocused her eyes for a moment, and then on the mental screen I saw “yes.”
“Useful. We can leave notes for one another, perhaps.” I silently dictated.
“What about her? You don’t seem to have told her much compared to me.”
“That’s temporary. She’s still in the process of becoming like you; I don’t want to spook her and make it take longer. So far I haven’t managed to capture anyone with the necklaces; they are SLOW. At least compared to rituals that instantly capture. Once she’s secure, I’ll tell her everything. I still need to tell both of you about my more immediate plans when she wakes up.”
“Alright. Shall we then? I very much want to know what your plan is for all these people you put in your pocket plane.”
I gave her a sheepish look. “So do I. I’m working on it.”
Half an hour and a trip downstairs for breakfast later, we were sitting around the table in our room with bread and cheese.
“So, you both know I can perform unique rituals to create specific effects?” Both nodded, though Darcell had far less confidence when she did. “I have a handful that I can do at any given moment. I suspect both of you could do at least some of them for me, at least once your jewelry lets you see them.” This seemed very exploitable to me, but I wasn’t going to complain. I don't know what The Company will do if they decide something is broken.
“Today, one ritual available to us involves insulting a child here in Goldshire. It’s got to hurt.” Drusilla snorted, and Darcell spaced out for a solid minute. Probably because she was trying to question my motives and kept getting distracted. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
I waved Darcell off. “No need to worry about that part. You won’t be participating in it. Anyway, in addition to that, there is a woman from SI:7 by the name of Keryn Sylvius staying at this inn who I need to stamp with this.” I held up my company stamp. “I need about three seconds for it to take, and I bet she won’t be the most cooperative if I walk up to her and ask to hold an unknown magic item against her skin. If possible, I don’t want her to realize I did it. I think either of you could do it too, if you have a plan. My worst idea is to all put on disguises and then jump her if she leaves town. Try to knock her out, stamp her, and make sure she heals up okay. We are going to try to avoid that one.”
“Why are we stamping her at all though?” A valid question from Darcell, and slightly surprising at that. Questions without judgement were okay, apparently.
“It’s the first part of a ritual that should create a useful magic item. It will also serve as an invitation to join our organization, which I think she will be willing to accept.” Drusilla’s lips parted as she nodded, understanding that part, though Darcell was still skeptical. “We don’t have a necklace, so we have to be a bit more indirect about it. Trust me, Darcy, she’ll be glad we did it no matter what we need to do to make it happen.” That was enough for her, no misty eyes this time.
“So here’s the plan: I am going to take care of Aaron, preferably in disguise, and you two are going to try to follow Keryn. If she catches you, just start begging her to teach you how to be a better scout and fighter; other than that, whatever you do, don’t mention the Brotherhood. If you can stamp her, do it.”
They both seemed open to that idea. Next came the scary bit. “After that, we are going south into Duskwood. There is a powerful necromancer posing as an old hermit living near Raven Hill, planning an assault on Darkshire. I’m going to nip that in the bud, and then I’m going to see if he was working with anyone else. It’ll be dangerous, but if we do our work here and can get in close to him, we will have all the tools we need.”
There it was. Worry. Redridge and Westfall were warzones, but everyone knew Duskwood was the most dangerous area in the kingdom of Stormwind. The Blackrock Orcs were mostly a scouting force. I have recently confirmed that the Defias can be dealt with peacefully, and that they give good head. The Scourge on the other hand? The only reason they hadn’t scoured all life on the continent is that they’d gotten distracted by events that most people in the world were entirely ignorant of.
“I understand if you’re too scared, Darcell. I know you don’t have much love for the Alliance, either, but this would be worth doing even if we weren’t going to benefit from it. Hell, if it were just for the ritual I’m pretty sure I’d pass on this one. There are kids that live in Darkshire, though. They probably shouldn’t, but I don’t want orphans or dead kids on my conscience.”
Darcell looked extremely troubled, but when she looked at me she seemed resolved. “That’s what we are here for, right? To make sure bad stuff doesn’t happen?”
“That’s the plan whenever possible.” I wanted to be a benevolent world dictator, but I wasn’t kidding about the benevolent part. “We are going to fix how things are run in Azeroth, so that when people come around to mess with us, we take them down.” I must have hit upon something important to her, because Darcell’s face broke into a huge grin at that.
“So ladies, are you ready to start?”