NOVEL SIMPLE To the Caverns
6/8 Noon
“But yeah, honestly regional upgrades have been one of the most disruptive things. Like, I don’t get the impression you’re going to remove them during this test, but the whole thing was really unintuitive at first, and once I figured it out it just incentivized me to invest more in girls that are already really powerful so I can get bigger boosts. The regional missions are fine, I guess, if you want to encourage exploration or whatever, but the upgrades are just way too good for something that I’d usually be at least sorta interested in doing anyway? Like, half of them would fit better as a major mission reward!”
He wrote a few more notes. “Alright. Thank you. Here is a bonus minor mission reward for your time.” He handed me a dead fish.
Savory Deviate Delight (test) - provides the user with the outfit and skillset of a pirate or ninja at random, functioning as template stacking
“Uh. Can I sell this back to you?”
“You may not. If you don’t want it, you may give it back instead.” He held out his hand.
I pulled the fish close to my chest. “No. No, I’ll keep it. Thanks.” If I could have gotten a credit for it, I certainly would have preferred to do that, but it wasn’t useless. The older version I’d seen and passed on before certainly would be at this point. It had functioned as power swap, and I just finished explaining to the shop keep that I had way too many high value power swaps per day already. As a template stacking type buff, it was all additive.
It would probably save me a few hours of training one of my girls; I was thinking Anveena. If I got lucky she’d get ninja, which would probably help her with subverting Silvermoon once she finished her training with Doan. If I didn’t get the high roll, giving her some phantom combat experience and a stronger body certainly wouldn’t hurt. I’d learned the hard way that Doan’s Students had power, but not much sense for how to protect themselves in combat.
••••••••••
I did some basic management on my way to the Caverns of Time. Buying Paradox defense, obviously. I sent Drusilla the Tome of Inferno once I noticed it; I wanted infernals and I trusted her to manage it. I read through the options for regional upgrades, but decided to hold off on it until I could focus more.
Aelthalyste briefed me on some operations updates. With the extra amulets I’d been able to give her over the last few days, she assigned a small team to the task of tracking any changes in the app. New missions of course, but also new captures, the movements of any targets, the list of dead, and the budget for base management. They were also managing the distribution of equipment and consumables, including the moderate pool of necklaces that were not currently assigned to any one member of the retinue. Add to that their duty of updating the retinue about current events and procedures, and I was thinking I needed a few more recruits diverted into the ops team to keep up. I authorized Aelthalyste to poach and reformat a few green recruits after Sylvanas’s next recruitment drive.
Irma’s business ventures were ticking along quite nicely; she requested that Madame Eva be transferred to her department. Apparently Irma’s strategy had been focused on safe short term investing, but she believed that with precognition she should be able to make a few riskier plays. I signed off on it immediately, with the caveat that Eva would be deployed just like any of Doan’s other students in the event of a large scale conflict.
The Centaur were not yet included in my income, so base management wasn’t quite as silly as it would be tomorrow. I bit the bullet and grabbed a bunch of upgrades, using a ton of essence while my energy was used to hand out skintight armored chitin bodysuits for all. Maxed out weapons and armor for my night elf units, top tier armor upgrades for my Nerubians to make them the most durable disposable chaff possible, and an upgrade specifically for Zagara to make her a lot tougher. I erred on the side of focusing on one unit, and put in an order for 42 queens and an offensive upgrade for my ranged Nerubian units. After that, I did a little math and. figured out what I could afford in terms of essence. I settled on 14 huntresses and the standard escape items from the ancient of wonders, leaving behind a bit of essence for tomorrow.
I didn’t have an obvious person to put in charge of training the queens other than Zagara. Hopefully her abilities could be transferred through training, or at least her skills could. If not, I’d need to figure something else out. The spiderlings could probably go with Gina; fury stance seemed like the best fighting style for them, even if it would need to be adapted for use with claws. The whole idea was to rush down one person each and overwhelm them, which seemed like a good fit. The other option was Darcell; as a demon hunter she also relied on overwhelming ferocity, but she had to dodge a lot more. I doubted that spiderling chitin was all that heavy, even with the upgrades. I just sent both; they could each teach half and we could compare results later.
I arrived at the Caverns of Time obelisk and started trying things. First up was the “so easy I’ll be disappointed if it works” solution. I summoned five of my fairy dragons; they were immune to magic and we all had paradox defense, this was magic that messed with time so I should have someresistance. Alas, magic immunity seemed to be more specifically an immunity to targeted spells, and paradox defense took a while to build up. Once the first fairy dragon was a few feet into the field, I saw her constantly teleporting backwards in a loop.
Two of them together, using each other as a reference point, didn’t work either. The one in the lead would always be in the lead, but they would teleport backwards a few feet together. Observing from outside with mage training was helping me get a basic idea of how it worked, and I was sure I could bypass it somehow. I tried using apportation to teleport to them and then blink further in, which just like last time only got me about a third of the way. My blink cooldown refused to progress and the ten seconds to use apportation never ended. I had to walk back out.
The breakthrough came when I tried coordinating two fairy dragons with amulets remotely. Each one would walk a few feet forward, and before they teleported for another loop I’d tell them to stop. Then I’d recall the one in the back to me, send them back, and have them walk a few steps forward. In this way, I was able to inch forward a few feet per minute. After about ten minutes of that, I realized I was an idiot.
After a quick planning session, I recalled one of the fairy dragons then teleported to the other. I blinked forward, and waited for about thirty seconds. Mila teleported in next to me, on the assumption she’d be more useful than a fairy dragon if something attacked me. I was pulled back out, next to the obelisk, and my blink cooldown ended in a few seconds. I teleported back to Mila, blinked forward again, and was joined by the Scarlet Crusade mage after around thirty seconds. In just a few minutes, we were in.
Well, I say in, but we still needed to get through the actual front door. I’ll be honest; I just punched a hole through. It was a slab of very strong stone, but a consistent, narrow stream of arcane energy cut a small peephole through, which I could blink through.
“I’m requesting Natalie personally attend me on this one, and send Selena along to possess me.” After around a minute, the ghostly replica of Natalie Seline settled in the back of my head and the real thing was observing through my eyes. I was as ready as I’d ever be. I faded and used stealth, leaving Mila on standby outside and doing my very best to not be seen. I didn’t want to bother anyone or cause a fuss; I was just here to get a bronze dragon. Anyone would do to start with.
The caverns started looking a bit like a natural cave, but they gave up that illusion pretty quickly. Cracks in the ceiling showed an alien night sky, bright purple and with more stars than you can see from anywhere on Azeroth. The walls had entire buildings embedded in them, and figures stood frozen in midstep. One of the buildings was unique in that it had people that were actually mobile. I approached quietly, listening at the door. It was, of all things, a tavern. I sniffed around with my dragon nose and didn’t smell any bronzes, so instead I quietly signed the wall. It was impulsive and possibly wasteful, but it also meant that I had a place within the caverns that the Bronze Dragonflight probably wouldn’t deny me access to if I got caught.
I continued until I found a formation of frozen human soldiers, which would be unremarkable at this point if there weren’t a single blonde elf examining them. An elf who, when I got closer, had the slightly salty smell of a bronze dragon. I was about to jump her when my hand moved involuntarily to my necklace. I checked my notes, figuring that was the most likely thing that Selena wanted me to do.
S: Let Vanessa handle it. We have a procedure.
I hadn’t seen my shadow operatives at work, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to settle in and wait. Vanessa must have been fully faded, because the first sign I saw of her presence was when she wrapped an amulet around the blonde’s neck like a garrote and jabbed a needle into her exposed throat. Selena left my body and flowed into the now glassy eyed Bronze Dragon, causing her to stand up and brush off the sand.
“Hmm. This one is relatively young. Still pliable.” She turned to look at me. “Lord Bismark, I think I should have her ready in about an hour. Would you like to fuck her while you wait?” She looked very hopeful as she continued, “She’s not expecting anyone else to be in this area for at least a few hours, and accelerating her submission may help me work faster, if that influences your decision.”