NOVEL NEXT A Painful Lesson
4/22, afternoon
After that I was dragged off to drill with weapons along with all the other trainees. Upon my arrival I saw Drusilla la Salle among the trainers, looking even more haggard in person, but I was too busy getting my ass kicked to do anything about it. I didn’t tire quickly, but the instructors quickly determined I’d never held a weapon in my life.
That redhead girl, Auffrey, practiced independently while most of us were being drilled in the basics, and while I knew virtually nothing about staff fighting, she seemed proficient to me. Especially when she and I were paired off as sparring partners with the staff and she proceeded to beat me with a stick for a solid five minutes.
(Art by NovelAi https://imgur.com/a/jXCr0IO)
It hurt a lot. I had reach and strength on her but she had the advantage of knowing what the hell she was doing. I’d take a swing and she’d dart in and smack me. I tried to get her on the backswing, and she parried. I took more satisfaction in seeing her knocked off balance for a second than I really should have, both because it was ungentlemanly and because I didn’t manage to capitalize on it at all.
I was covered in bruises by the end, and generally felt like shit. Of course it was my first day, but I already regretted not picking up martial talent. Maybe later. It just meant I needed to stay away from any brawls.
At dinner, I sat once again with Auffrey and let her choose to speak with me or not. I complimented her skills as I sat, but after that I focused on food. It took about a minute before she felt the need to fill the silence.
“Have you ever held a weapon in your life, sir..?” She seemed genuinely curious, which was a good sign.
“Bismark. Erich Bismark of Silverpine. And I’m afraid not; my mother wanted to keep me sheltered from danger. It didn’t do us much good when… you know.” She gave me a sympathetic nod. It was a reasonably plausible lie. Silverpine forest had been overrun by undead, and a family soft enough to shelter a child as much as I implied would have almost certainly ended up as refugees if they survived at all. More importantly, as long as I didn’t try to trade on my name much and kept my family as extremely minor nobility, I probably won’t be called on it. After all, nobody ever figured out that the Prestor family were just a pair of evil dragons. “I worked as a laborer while my mother wasted away after we got to Stormwind. When she died, I packed what was left of her jewelry and came here.”
“I understand. My family was driven off our lands by that damned group of thieves. Luckily we were able to get asylum with a distant cousin, but when I came of age it was time to start earning my keep. I know a bit of magic and am passable with my staff, but it’s better to be fully trained, is it not?”
“Agreed. You have my sympathy, Lady Auffrey”
“Ellerian. Auffrey Ellerian”
“So who are you studying under? That black haired woman?” I probed.
Auffrey looked like she had just sucked on a lemon. “No, thankfully I have no need of HER teachings. I am practicing the use of fire magic with Sir Bremen.” That probably meant Drusilla was a warlock. Maybe a shadow priest if the simulation was adding new people. Either way, I could work with that.
We chatted a bit more after that, mostly me asking about the abbey. I was assigned the task of washing the laundry in the nearby river, which took a bit but wasn’t particularly eventful. For a few of the clothes I tried to practice the bandage blessing spell, but not to much effect. It felt inappropriate to use holy magic to expedite my chores, and soul talent let me know hangups like that would severely weaken my connection to the light. I did have more success getting tough stains out; maybe because I couldn’t do them any other way.
While I was hanging the clothes to dry, I checked my app, realizing I probably should have done so in the morning. It was exciting to see that my retinue now read 1(2). I opened up the retinue menu and pulled up Anetta’s status.
Priestess Anetta- healer, priest
T4,
Healthy
158 hours to capture
Obedience: unlocked at 24/72/120 hours remaining
Disobedience: unlocked at 48/96 hours remaining
Forbidden action/punishment: none
What was this? A control panel for her necklace? Now THAT was something to play with. Apparently at this point I could forbid only one action. The necklace should also just generally make her more submissive and sexual towards me, over time. I wondered if I could do anything to accelerate that.
Experimentally, I put into the forbidden action box “feeling sexual pleasure without thinking of Erich Lewis.” For the punishment, I checked my options. Pain, emotional numbness, orgasm denial, shame, momentary amnesia, paralysis. It seems like each would only last for as long as she continued the behavior, and I could set the intensity. For now I decided to stick with simple. Orgasm denial unless she thought of me. I wasn’t even sure if she masturbated, but hopefully she’d start if her libido was cranked up.
Next I checked my missions and found one new moderate mission.
The Dunemaul Compound
Capture the ogre Gor’marok the Ravager in Tanaris. Bonus if he never sees you before he is captured.
Reward: one use tantric ritual scroll + 1 credit + 1 T3 waifu capture ticket
Bonus: 5gp in goblin spare parts
I probably shouldn’t have bothered. Tanaris is on another continent, and capturing some kind of ogre champion seemed like it would be a really rough time. The only reason I’d even consider this quest is that the rewards are pretty major. A scroll I could use to capture someone, a credit, and a free capture of anyone up to tier three, which included most people that didn’t have superhuman abilities, not to mention Gor’marok himself. Even the bonus 5 gold seemed like a ton of money right now. It’ll be sitting in my questlog for a while, I imagine. If I’m in Tanaris for some reason, I’ll look this ogre up.
I tried to heal myself and clear up these bruises, but I didn’t know how to do it properly, so all I ended up doing was glowing for a bit and exhausting myself. At least that made it easier to get to sleep.