LIGHTNOVELONLINE Enjoying the Splash Zone
5/13 afternoon
As Onyxia walked away, I turned my attention to the two women she had been talking to. I smiled, and the two of them gave me cautious smiles in return. They didn’t know me, and I’d just intruded on their conversation, so they really should be pretty miffed. As I gave a small bow, I could tell that annoyance was still their foremost emotion, compulsions he damned.
“Sorry to intrude, my ladies. I am Erich Bismark, commander of the Rampant Lions, at your service.” The word commander got the elf’s attention. The human, Lady Kennedy, blushed and excused herself after inviting the elf to her manor tonight, muttering something about needing to go over her books.
“‘My name is Caledra Dawnbreeze, ranger of the Quel’dorei. What are the Rampant Lions? I’m afraid I haven’t heard of them.”
“Not surprising. We are a mercenary band, only formed this year, but growing quickly.”
“Oh. Are you accepting new contracts?” She smiled at me. “If your men are as impressive as you, I think you’d be more than worth hiring.”
“It depends on the nature of the contract. For a good cause and good pay? Absolutely. For a pretty enough face, we might give a discount.” She frowned in response to the attempt at flirting, which surprised me. Communication talent hadn’t led me wrong yet. It still hasn’t, apparently; after a moment taken aback, a flattered smile creeped across her face.
“A bit forward, aren’t you?”
Communication talent suggested being outright crude. She didn’t seem the type, but I went for it. “Depends, how forward does a man need to be to get you in bed?”
Her mouth gaped open in shock and outrage, then softened just as quickly into an amused smile. “Another man? Not very. For you though, it seems to be working.”
My talent, quite insistently, suggested getting her alone. “Maybe we could talk over that job somewhere a bit more private?”
“Alright. Don’t expect anything but a contract negotiation, though.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. After that though…” she laughed.
I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening here, but apparently communication talent did. I walked with the lightly armored elf to the courtyard, where she turned to me.
“Can your people fight undead, and are they equipped to travel in dangerous territory? I’m looking to charter a caravan from near Quel’Thalas to the Hinterlands.”
“I can do that. What’s in it for me though?” Just a bit dismissive, given the enormity of what she was asking. A trip through the Plaguelands would be a solid week even if the roads were miraculously clear of the Scourge, and they definitely wouldn’t be. Then I’d need to get through the lands ruled by the Forsaken, who were more reasonable but not by much. Of course, apportation meant I didn’t need to worry about any of that nonsense if I could get two people into position at the start and end points of the journey.
She had that same dismay, but every time I threw her off she seemed to be more amused and affectionate when she recovered. “Well, my people have been banished from our city, so for the moment our resources are very strained, but-“
Interrupt. “So you can’t pay me. You’d better have a plan to make it worth my while.” Leer. Well ok, communication talent. You seem to know something I don’t, so I’ll stare at her tits. She seemed at a loss, then seemed to get an idea.
“Well, I’m a fairly skilled tracker. I’ve been in the Farstriders for centuries. I would be willing to put myself at your disposal. I’m sure others would be too.”
Make it sexual. “How much would you be at my disposal, exactly?” I stepped in and wrapped an arm around her, placing a hand on her ass. Her chest was pretty modest, but her ass was fantastic; a nice, firm handful. She tried to push me off for a few moments, and communication talent insisted that holding her against me was the thing to do.
She gave up, and the next thing I knew she was whispering into my chest. “Completely.” She had a dreamy smile as she looked up into my face. It was a look of extreme affection. It was then that it hit me: she was compelled to love me. According to the catalog, resisting the compulsion would increase its intensity. Communication talent was making me act like a tool in order to repeatedly bait her into trying to not love me. The result was her falling for me harder and harder by the minute as long as I escalated in small stages.
“You’ll have to show me what you’re offering.” I kissed her, and she melted into the kiss. It was so damn easy. “I’ll do it if I get to keep you. Come on.” I opened up a portal to my apartment in a tree, and pulled her through with me, closing the portal behind us.
Once she was there, firmly within my power, I decided to have a bit of fun. I told her my story. I edited it and held information back according to communication talent’s suggestions, but I went down the list of things I’d done and worked her up to the point where she was looking at me like the stars were in my eyes as I explained how I reshaped Abercrombie into my willing sex slave.
The last flicker of concern came when I explained what I was doing to her right at that moment, crushed by a wave of adoration that overwhelmed every other emotion. She sighed, “Thank you. It feels wonderful to be desired by you.”
“And all you need to do to stay this way, to be mine forever and earn my support for your people, is tell me you love me.”
“Oh yes, yes. I do. I do love you! More than anything!” Captured. Good thing too, I’m pretty sure that this spell only lasts for a week. I wondered what would change when the compulsion ended. Would she instantly fall out of love with me? Would she stay madly in love but regain the ability to fall out of love? Now that she was captured, would it even matter?
“Good. I’m sure your people will love me too. Don’t worry, I really will save them. I’ll do it more efficiently than you could possibly imagine.” I’d been planning on sending a few people up north anyway, but I found myself really liking the idea of elven rangers mounted on my newly forming fleet of dragons, and I was uniquely qualified to move a tremendous number of people from one place to another.
Caledra was thrilled at a promise like that, and jumped into my arms happily as if this was our honeymoon instead of our first meeting, and I hadn’t just all but informed her that I’d be enslaving a meaningful percentage of her countrymen. “Thank you, you are our savior! I’ll do anything you need if you only save them.” It wasn’t on my to do list from the company, but neither were the draenei. I couldn’t always be chasing after missions with everything I had. There were elf babes that needed saving from undead hordes; the dudes could come too, of course.
I had an eager elf clinging to me, so of course I had my way with her. She was far enough gone that not a single thing I wanted from her made her so much as bat an eye. Oh yeah, Onyxia would be fun.
••••••••••
After we were done and Calendra was happily cuddled against me, I did what I usually do in the afterglow; I dicked around on my phone while a beautiful woman was curled up against me.
It turns out that having put the necklace on Onyxia qualified as mission success; presumably my necklace figured that there was literally no way I could fuck it up at this point without outright suicidal levels of stupidity, like taking her necklace off and leaving her alone until the end of the week.
I now had my first deluxe mission ticket, a dragon themed symbiote, and one of the less directly useful basic talents: performance talent. I’m not saying that being a triple threat stage performer would be entirely useless, it just didn’t seem like it would come up often. The other two were far more interesting.
The symbiote was supposedly a “globster,” which meant nothing to me at first, but it turned out to be a basic unit from the Symbiote binding. The symbiote turns your whole life into a huge sexualized RTS, and globsters were one of the several creatures you could make, which would in turn act as a symbiote to strengthen and enslave the wearer. Think of it as a mobile, dimly intelligent necklace focused on powering up the victim instead of warping their personality to my specifications.
I mean it when I say power up, too. Enhanced strength, speed, toughness, and senses. They also granted a set of useful talents, though some of them were a bit redundant for my build. Most notably, martial and wild talent, as well as body, wild, and environmental defense. In summary, it is retractable power armor that lets the wearer survive in any environment and ups the poison resistance everyone in my team has to outright immunity.
In addition, according to the catalog it can also function as a very fast acting binding, but only on people up to tier 4; anything stronger will have a meaningful chance of destroying the little blob before it can fuse. Using the catalog as a guide, that seemed to mean I could probably capture anyone that wouldn’t qualify as a 5 man boss fight by just sending this little guy their way, and magic users have a better chance of destroying it than physical fighters. Alternatively I might be able to help it out by disabling or distracting someone in a higher weight class, then capturing them near-instantly.
I immediately tried to use the deluxe mission ticket on Living the Emerald Dream; unfortunately that didn’t get me anything but an error message. Same for 100 Wolf Moon; shame. That one had another deluxe mission ticket as its reward. I was feeling very clever there. No, it was for moderate missions only. Which meant my options were pretty limited, actually. There was one mission that absolutely stood out though.
It was a massive investment of time and resources, it’s rewards were phenomenal, and it involved open warfare with people I intended to make into my allies eventually: the Forsaken Undead, led by Sylvannas Windrunner. Arathi Basin Resources had to go. I just couldn’t see myself in a situation any time soon where marching an army into the Arathi Highlands was the best use of my time and effort. I was pretty sure it was doable, but I could be using those same troops in Duskwood or Westfall.
I pressed the button in my head, and reaped the rewards. 5 credits, bringing me back up to 19, a disposable company stamp, a memory charm which I’d be sure to use to much greater effect this time, and the Reward for Service: the real prize.
Reward for Service would give me a unique opportunity, the chance to set a mission for myself, or to get an extra reward for something I was going to do anyway. The bigger the challenge I took on, the bigger a reward I could get, and I could back out at any time.
I got up; it was time for dinner, and after that I’d be going and checking in with Onyxia. I helped Calendra dress, gave her a slap on the ass on her way out, and sent her back to the courtyard.