NOVEL NEXT Big Game Hunting
6/14 night day 2
I spent the rest of day 2 repeatedly visiting and fleeing from the Highmountain camp. I wasn’t trying to take over the whole place in one go, just seed the tribe with retinue members. I trusted Talaada to capitalize on my new fanclub; nearly 5% of the population were captured and around 20% had a strong positive perception of me. Dirty Minds triggered a few times over the course of the day, and whenever it did I took the lucky girl away from the crowd and rocked her world while my mana regenerated.
Overall it was a pretty fun time, and once I got a rhythm I didn’t need to drop everything and focus on restoring my mana anywhere near as often. I occasionally checked up on my shows in short bursts. Thankfully they paused when I stopped paying attention to them.
••••••••••
Chadro’thar, Talaada’s most successful and least favorite subordinate, was mostly confused when I tuned in to watch him. He had arrived on a platform that seemed to be floating in a blank space, with nothing to see save a pillar of crystal which glowed a gentle blue. He had basically nothing to go on, and to his great distress he had no ability to conjure food, water, a scrying sensor… his magic was simply gone. He checked his necklace, in accordance to his briefing, and found a very different menu.
Deploy
Invade
Summon
Shop
Contact
Focusing on the word “summon” conjured three faces in his field of vision. A pale pink woman with a pair of blonde braids and round ears, an elderly looking man with green skin, and a white faced figure with glowing red eyes and black armor. They were each labeled with names that meant nothing to a man born and raised in the Kaldorei Empire: Sergeant Hammer, Gul’Dan, and Alarak.
Being a bit of a horndog, he chose to summon the Hammer woman. She was fairly short and a bit chubby by elven standards, but had a substantial bust. Chadro’thar jumped when a huge metal monstrosity appeared before him, next to the crystal pillar. He’d never seen a tank before, and he absolutely didn’t know what to think of it. After a bit of cowering, he switched back to bravado befitting a highborne and commanded “the Hammer Woman” to reveal herself. She did without complaint, popping out of the top of the tank and staring at him expectantly.
He experimented for a while, including testing to see if there were any limits to her obedience. He didn’t find any by the time he’d gotten his rocks off; he could give her any command and she’d do her best, including orders to be more enthusiastic. Despite that, she had absolutely no drive to do anything at all beyond what he ordered her to and wasn’t very creative in her approach. He was fairly happy with the arrangement so far, though she wasn’t very good for conversation.
Shop and invade both apparently required some manner of currency called Shards, so he opened the “deploy” menu and explored the list of options. The Haunted Mines, the Eternal Battlefield, the Braxis Holdout… Well, he didn’t know what he needed shards of, but a mine might be the best option if it was some kind of mineral? He didn’t want to wander onto a battlefield!
Alas, all of them appeared to be battlefields. When he selected the haunted mines, the description informed him that someone called the Raven Lord was putting down a rebellion from someone called the Grave Keeper. Thinking that it might pay to ingratiate himself with a local noblity, Chadro’thar decided to ally himself with the Raven Lord when prompted to pick a side. He was presented with the same three individuals, and chose to send both Alarak and Gul’dan. He was stumbling along, guessing randomly.
He ordered them to put down the rebellion and, much like Hammer they “did their best.” They plowed through a few dozen soldiers armed with swords and bows before facing any true resistance. Of course, when the dark angel and undead abomination recognized as Malthael and Stitches respectively burst out of the treeline to stop their advance, the default AI was not up to the task. As it turns out, getting head and not paying attention while you’re directing troops did not lead to good outcomes. After only one good push, his heroes were torn apart in a team fight.
As the two died, he received two treasure chests, which he opened eagerly. His menu implied that he’d get more free heroes tomorrow, so he wasn’t overly worried about the loss. As he opened them, he heard a voice in his head clearly speak:
Raynor: common hero
Orcish Bed: rare furniture
He was initially confused, but then he found the bed and pink skinned soldier in his summon menu. It wasn’t much, but the simple bed with a wolf pelt for a blanket was certainly more comfortable than the hard ground, and gave him a place to sit.
He was invited back to the Haunted Mines by the Raven Lord, even offered fifty shards for the assistance. Any level of guidance seemed good to Chadro’thar, and he had two heroes, Raynor and Hammer, remaining. He sent them along and allowed the smooth voice of the Raven Lord to advise him on strategy. Apparently the summoning of heroes was a common ability among the mightiest lords of this realm, as the Raven Lord had his own compliment of five deployed around the mines.
Chadro’thar’s heroes turned the even five on five duel into a five on seven, and with the Raven Lord calling the shots they pushed forward quite far before the two terrans were killed off. Two more chests, fifty shards, and a bit of mentoring that triggered Martial Talent? Good deal. The two chests contained a minion, like the ones he’d been slaughtering en masse, and a “skin.”
The Raider Sergeant Hammer skin was a crystal that he could apply in his summon menu to either himself or his new pawn. When applied to the minion, turned it into a grey haired clone of Hammer with a blue tank instead of a red one.
He couldn’t send her away to get him another loot crate even if he wanted to, so he settled down and enjoyed her company while he looked through the shop. As it turned out, 50 shards was both quite a lot and not much at all. It would cover his food and water needs for a month and a half, as one shard could purchase a wide variety of simple meals. Unfortunately, if he wanted anything more durable like equipment or more furniture, that tended to start at 40 and go up from there. Animals started at 75, if he wanted a pet, and the cheapest tier of heroes were 300 each.
He was internally debating the benefits of saving for more heroes to increase his loot box income and spending his shards on creature comforts when an alarm rang out from his crystal pillar.
“You are being invaded by the forces of the Grave Keeper.” Chimed a calm feminine voice.
“This will teach you not to meddle in the affairs of your betters!” Cried out a strident male voice as a few dozen skeletons led by a towering bone golem stormed out of the circle of darkness surrounding Chadro’thar’s nexus.
The minion infused with the power and form of Sergeant Hammer hopped into her tank and put forth a valiant defense while the central crystal fired blasts of energy to defend itself. Chadro’thar ran as fast as his optimized legs could take him, playing keep away from the pursuing golem while the Nexus chipped away at its body. Hammer was crushed by the golem’s massive sledgehammer fist, as was his bed, but the golem was destroyed before Chadro’thar.
“Wait, what? He’s alive?” The Grave Keeper shouted, not realizing he was speaking into a hot mike. “Well, I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson. Next time I will not be so merciful!”
Chadro’thar leaned against his moderately damaged nexus as it slowly repaired itself. Both his bed and Hammer had vanished when destroyed, and the normally cocky elf sat quietly for several hours, hoping against hope that he would get his next batch of heroes before anyone else attacked him.
With shaking hands, he grasped his amulet and checked to see if there were any expeditions he might send his heroes on that wouldn’t bring him into conflict with any nexus lords. That might be best for the time being. He hunted around for something that sounded both understandable and innocuous. The Raven Lord seemed shrewd, but assisting him had invited retaliation from his enemies and he had not seen fit to provide a warning.
“Queen Nightshade?” He warily asked through the Contact menu, “Is it true you need people to assist you in gathering… seeds? If so, will you still have need of such assistance tomorrow? I’d be happy to help a lady of your stature. Consider me your servant.” Yeah, that sounded good, right?
••••••••••
6/14 day 3
While Lividia and I flew north to her flight’s most sacred shrine and hatchery, I examined the Sgt. Hammer skin that had appeared in my inventory when Chadro’thar’s minion died. The minion was here too, but apparently the company considered the two of them to be separate assets. If I was interpreting the aura and the item description correctly, this would work like training someone with a building. Including, delightfully enough, Kerrigan’s upgrade where they keep all of their preexisting skills and powers. It wasn’t transferable like a skill chip though; consumed and permanent on use.
As such, I was currently holding an item that would give someone the permanent ability to summon a goddamn space tank straight out of StarCraft and the skills necessary to use it. I genuinely didn’t know who to give it to; it would certainly be a power boost but it risked overshadowing someone’s entire existing skillset. A certain evil little part of me wondered what would happen if I gave it to Xal’atath, just because the thought of a magical dagger piloting a super tank amused me more than it should.
I didn’t fail to note that the Hammer Tank counted for Space Truckin, though I had declined the option to resurrect and isekai the undead minions the Gravekeeper had sent to break Chadro’thar’s shins. They would have been free labor, but I was inclined to send out people I had some level of favor for, or that I thought would be particularly funny or effective. Random minions didn’t seem the most likely to work out.
Regardless, whether he knew it or not Chadro’thar was looking like he’d be immensely profitable for me. I liked the benefits of making one of my retinue members a Unit, but if this skin was a good indication of what I could expect from the Nexus? He’d be providing me with something roughly equivalent to a hero unit whenever he got one of them killed. Assuming, of course, that he didn’t get into a knock down drag out conflict with the Grave Keeper.
Lividia and I were both black dragons when we arrived at the Obsidian Dragonshrine, where we stood out a bit despite being the right species. At this point in history, Deathwing hadn’t gone overtly evil yet. Instead, most of his darker impulses went towards systematically breaking down his own flight so he could be sure to have absolute blind obedience whenever he did start firing off genocide beams. What I hoped that would mean was that many black dragons end up talking to him routinely. I had no such luck.
We wandered the shrine doing our best broken drone impression. You never do anything for only one reason if you can help it, so we were actually checking the volcanic vents and assessing this place as a nursery for our egg. We needed to secure it first, but it would be a great location to help our little one develop optimally.
Of course, while I wasn’t lucky enough to get Deathwing in an easy to capture context, I did meet someone I knew the name of. Sintharia, the current youngest consort of Neltharion. Her chosen visage was a silver haired highborne woman; no doubt she’d switch to a blood elf sometime in the future, when high and blood elves became a distinct species. She was relatively young and unflinchingly loyal to Deathwing, so I didn’t try anything too funny. I just gifted her an amulet with Jewels of Discord active, one which she could later pass on to Neltharion.
Why am I so hung up on this one random dragoness? Simple, dear reader. There is no power move that so completely encapsulates both immaturity and domination as fucking your rival’s mother, and in another timeline Sintharia laid the clutch of eggs that would eventually hatch into Onyxia and Nefarian. Combine that with her semi-routine access to Neltharion any time he got horny, she certainly had some utility to my plan of fucking and/or gender swapping every single one of the original 5 dragon aspects.
••••••••••
In another world, in another time, Eva was making her way through the shattered lands of Shadowmoon Valley in Outland. She had spent a few days pushing her Vision to it’s very limits looking for a thing half remembered: an echo of the orc shaman once known as Ner’zhul, now half of the gestalt entity known as the Lich King. Not unlike the shadows of Medivh found in Kharazan, it was an echo of the powerful spellcaster trapped in an eternal closed loop of behavior. Importantly, it would probably do quite well as a component of the ritual to bind the Lich King.
There was only one problem: my faulty memory. There was no echo of Ner’zhul in Shadowmoon Valley. Apparently the ritual that blew up the whole damn planet of Draenor to make a bunch of portals was not the magically charged event that created a mystical imprint of the caster. No, the echo that I remembered was actually Gul’dan, Ner’zhul’s more powerful and marketable apprentice, corrupting a powerful fire elemental in order to nerf shaman and usher in the orc warlock meta that carried the Horde through all of Warcraft 1 and 2.
Eva still slipped the necklace around his ghostly neck of course. I don’t think he was emotionally close enough to Ner’zhul to add another point of resonance to the ritual, so my pen was still going into the fire, but despite that he could serve as a teacher for my darker spellslingers. After all, most of my warlocks were pretty mid when it came to actually using dark magic without a pre captured demon to piggyback off of. There are far worse things to find than an echo of the greatest mortal warlock in the entire Warcraft setting.