NOVEL NEXT Chapter 278: Rewards Program
6/11 noon
Western Plaguelands: Defeat Grand Inquisititor Isillien
Reward: Instant Capture of Uther the Lightbringer
Thel'danis tended the Sunfruit trees in the garden. These blessed fruits were some of the only fresh produce that grew safely in the Plaguelands, thanks to the sanctified ground here. It was a lonely task, tending to the tomb of the Lightbringer, but one worth doing. The old elf had never met the Paladin whose spirit guarded this place, but he liked to think that they might have been friends. He had died protecting the ashes of a king in this very place, struck down by an old student. Even so, his vigil was unending, his spirit providing this tiny bastion against the Scourge.
A loud ringing tone issued from within the tomb. It sounded like the power of the Light, but Thel'danis could not imagine what would prompt such a thing. He rushed to the chamber, only to find a strange figure huddled before the statue on his hands and knees. It was a broad shouldered man with shaggy black hair, appearing human other than his blue skin and the dark wings sprouting from his back.
"Excuse me," Thel'danis asked warily, "are you here to visit the tomb? Are you in need of healing or supplies?"
"No," the strange man answered, "I don't think this is where I'm meant to be." He spoke with a smooth, kind voice. He stood up unsteadily and turned to face the old priest, revealing his face; it was a perfect match for the statue behind him. "I can take you with me if you'd like. I don't know if this place will be safe anymore. I'm sorry."
••••••••••
I read through my options for Aegwynn's upgrade.
Strength-Tirisfalen: Aegwynn gains the ability to teach the ritual that created the original guardian of Tirisfal, allowing multiple mages to network their powers together to create a single unified front stronger than its constituent parts.
Agility-Pass it on: Aegwynn may instantly pass all of her powers and magical knowledge on to another person, as template stacking. Doing this reduces her to tier 1 with no special abilities, though she is still fundamentally the same person.
Stamina- infant Immortality: So long as she is pregnant with the Tester's child, Aegwynn can not die or otherwise be seriously harmed or compromised. She will instead be teleported back to the pocket home and unable to leave for 24 hours.
Intelligence: Thinking with Portals- Aegwynn gains the ability to summon and maintain permanent portals between any two locations by performing two identical rituals at the two ends of the portal.
Spirit: Mistress of the House: all beings currently within Kharazan are instantly captured, further the tower of Kharazan becomes a recognized company space, allowing for the collection of energy and purchase of any pocket space upgrades to apply equally to Kharazan and the Pocket Home.
Agility might have been an interesting option for exploiting trained units, and stamina would have been very tempting if it applied to all women carrying my children instead of just Aegwynn. Strength had potential, but as I recall they'd stopped doing the network spell to empower guardians because it left the majority of the mages extremely vulnerable. Intelligence barely registered. Spirit, however, gave me a big pile of high quality recruits and a magical citadel all at once. The fact that Kharazan would become a demiplane or dungeon when I finished off Dar'Khan was just icing on the cake, though it was very tasty icing.
I selected Mistress of the House, and took great pleasure in watching yet another new tab populate itself in my retinue app. Over three hundred ghosts, most of which were at tier four or five, a few hundred mana surges (essentially arcane elementals), scores of magical automatons, dozens of demons led by a powerful Man'ari, nine living but cursed human artifact hunters, a tier five titanic watcher, an immortal undead butler, and that was just the intelligent or powerful ones.
It was an old tower, infested with tens of thousands of vermin, in addition to the larger and more dangerous animals mutated by the dense arcane energy there. Thanks to mind and body runes plus talent sharing, a rat or cockroach could be reshaped any way I pleased. Usually animals weren't actually worth the investment of time and effort needed to recruit them, since they couldn't consent enough for a love confession, but if an absurd number were going to be dropped into my lap I didn't intend to waste them. I was in no particular hurry to transform all of them, but if I felt so inclined I could fill Valhalla up to capacity in a day or two by turning them into every flavor of demon I had.
I wasn't sure if I'd actually go through with that; after all, it would be a bit of a logistical nightmare to feed and dress all of them, and I had my onboarding team working around the clock on newly healed gnomes out of Gnomeregan. Transforming cockroaches would be busywork, for the Brotherhood priests to take care of when they didn't have anything more pressing to do. I assigned Aelthalyste to handle the assignment of a team to go and onboard the residents of Kharazan, not to mention going through the many artifacts found within the tower. It was like Christmas.
••••••••••
Day 18
The Bronze Dragons were dangerous to approach. After all, each of them were loosely aware of the retinue's existence, if not their presence in this timeline. It was difficult for Talaada to mask that she was a bronze dragon, amulets worked a bit slowly, polymorph was optimized to work on humans, and trying to use time stop on a Bronze dragon would be seen as rather quaint. Seducing all of them would probably work, if Talaada was willing to whore herself out with full power Shadow Word: Charms, but she didn't particularly want to do that more often than necessary.
As such, they decided to instead focus on ambushing the bronzes, giving them Jewelry in the form of bracelets or fashionable anklets, and obliterating their memories of the exchange with mind flay. It was risky, and meant that only Talaada and Doan had amulets most days, massively slowing down recruitment elsewhere, but over the course of a few weeks they would likely be able to capture the entire bronze presence in this timeline.
Gaining free reign was worth almost any risk, short of inviting a full scale assault by the bronze flight. It would be out of character for them, but according to Soridormi the bronze leadership could and would mobilize the entire flight to fight something deemed to be a multiversal threat. If they didn't seem like a threat to all timelines, then Talaada's team could operate with relative impunity. They already had two of the six known bronze dragons collared and had put in a request for more amulets; more would follow.
••••••••••
Annetta called forth vines to entrap the fleeing Naga, the power of nature striking down her enemies at her request. She was trying to ensnare them, not actually harm them. Prisoners could join the retinue, and even these evil women deserved that opportunity. All around her, the centaur raiding party mimicked her actions with nets and spells of their own. A few of the Naga fought back with too much vigor to be subdued; they were regrettably killed and sent back to Twilight Grove.
https://imgur.com/a/eae9dqb
The former human priestess looked over at Leh'Prah, hoping that he'd noticed her contribution. She still hoped that Erich would come back to her, but the wise centaur khan had caught her eye as well. Becoming a Keeper of the Grove had dulled her libido a bit, but it had been set right back to what it had always been by the priesthood, with a new appreciation for the equine form. Life as a well respected mare was surprisingly appealing; she was teaching again, and unlike before she was among the best in her field. She felt special, and it was just wonderful.
Leh'Prah was a little older than her, but he was rugged and handsome. He didn't seem terribly interested, unfortunately. There was one other man she'd been eyeing. Zaetar, her Shan'do, had been training her in the finer points of Druidism, and she couldn't help but notice how impressive his physique was. It was all just idle fantasies for now, but she'd need to commit to a course of action soon. One can't live in fantasies forever; she might have kept Erich's attention if she'd tried harder to stay with him. After all, what had Lividia done but insert herself into his life and refuse to be ignored?
The battle was over before it even started, and the Naga knew it. The centaur's raids were becoming less and less fruitful as their enemies refused to stand and fight. Oh well. Perhaps they could become Naga to follow?