LIGHTNOVELONLINE Welcome to Stormwind
5/10 late afternoon
As I flew, I sent a question to Drusilla: “are you in a position to talk?”
Initially I got a negative; Drusilla and Annetta were out on patrol, putting pressure on the gnolls. They didn’t really have the manpower yet, but the magistrate wanted them to retake the canyons north of town. That was good, I supposed. They’d passively gather amulets if they focused on the gnolls; the orcs were hopefully still recovering from the assault on Stonewatch.
Vanessa gave me a call while I was flying as well, to my surprise. It always threw me off when someone actually remembered that they could contact me too. “My Lord. I have prepared Irma; she has been practicing for the role of your personal assistant for a few days and I have just revealed the truth to her. She is eager to attend to you whenever you are ready.” Vanessa seemed very excited about this.
“I’m going to visit a noble family. Do you think having an attendant like her would increase my credibility?”
“Oh certainly. At least two or three servants is fairly normal actually. One is the minimum.” Good to know.
“Bodyguard and personal assistant? Will anyone question if I bring Tessa? She’s a soldier in the Stormwind Army.” I regretted leaving Lividia behind, but she was taking care of Talaada right now. I wondered if I’d ever have the resources necessary to just have everyone with me reliably.
“Probably best to not bring her in full armor; technically I don’t think she owns it. Nobody really enforces that rule, but it would be seen as very tasteless.” Dammit. So the best equipped person in my retinue was technically stealing office supplies from her old job. Maybe I should get her some new kit?
I touched down in the woods near the gates of Stormwind, distant enough to be mistaken for a large black bird by any eagle eyed lookouts. I assumed my visage and made my way to the road. Unfortunately I wasn’t thinking, so I stumbled onto the road in full view of a patrol. They took note of me, asking if I was alright and offering to escort me to the city. I had a sinking suspicion I’d end up in some report somewhere, or at least a casual story shared at the pub about unusual stuff happening today. That wasn’t the worst thing ever, but I knew that this was occupied territory. The lower my profile the better.
As an additional drawback, I couldn’t summon Drusilla or Irma while I was being escorted. I got some weird looks when my necklace said it was ready to talk. I briefly considered just openly announcing myself as Erich Bismark, supreme commander of the Rampant Lions, but decided against it. I didn’t want my main persona to become known for erratic behavior like wandering out of the woods and talking to himself in a world where cell phones weren’t a thing.
The grand entrance to Stormwind is extremely extra. A giant ass marble bridge across a huge reservoir of water, lined by gigantic statues of heroes of the Alliance and several dozen elite guards monitoring who was coming and going. I was honestly expecting it to look at least a little different in person, but no. The Valley of Heroes is exactly as over the top as it looks. I hope whoever built this was paid well, oh wait no, they were instead underpaid and killed by adventurers in most versions of this world.
The only real difference was the line to get in, as guards asked for their name and business. I was waved on through when I told them I had been invited to dine with House Elerian. They checked a guest list, and I was on it. I declined an offered escort, and made my way into town.
Stormwind was as busy as it was beautiful. There seemed to be some kind of celebration going on, but I wasn’t getting distracted this time. The street was filled mostly with humans, but there were plenty of dwarves as well. Gnomes and night elves were a minority, but present here and there. The layout of the city was not too far off from the game, though far more sprawling. The docks that had been added in Cataclysm were here already; presumably the designers of this recreation found the idea of a sea-side trade city not having any docks to be a bit silly.
I made my way through the crowded streets to the Mage Quarter, and asked the seediest beggar I could find if he knew where the Slaughtered Lamb was. A meat pie and a piece of silver were more than enough to jog his memory, so I was able to make my way there in good time. I didn’t know many places where I might be able to be sketchy with minimal chance of it reaching the authorities; this was one of them. Besides, I needed to drop Drusilla off for her continuing studies. I took a quick trip to the Cemetery to have a solemn chat with a randomly selected grave. The grave tenders were more than willing to let me have my solitude, but I had a creeping suspicion that in a world with necromancers they would take any signs of magical shenanigans, such as summoning my companions, very poorly.
Armed with a passcode given to new initiates, I made my way to the sketchiest bar in the city. When I got there, it looked pretty dead. There were three rough looking guys in the corner playing cards, and the bartender didn’t look very happy to see me. I sat at the bar and ordered a cheap beer, then when he got close I whispered, “you can’t fight fire in the dark.” He didn’t respond, but he tinked two bottles together three times while he was rearranging his back shelf a minute or so later. Not long after that, one of the card players got up to take a leak.
A tan girl with dark shoulder length hair came and sat next to me a few minutes later, dressed in a sleeveless red dress with a plunging neckline. “What brings a handsome guy like you to a dive like this?” She signaled to the barkeep, and got a glass of wine promptly. She leaned in towards me with a smile.
“Well a friend of mine told me a girl named Porena might be willing to show me a good time.” I studiously didn’t stare at my fellow apprentice warlock's chest. It wasn’t a real proposition and she apparently didn’t like this part of the job much, according to Drusilla.
“Maybe so. We can talk about it in the back.” She led me to a back room, which did have a comfortable bed and romantic candlelight. They were going all in with this, weren’t they? “So, about the pay…”
I summoned Mezzo, to Porena’s obvious relief. “Thank the light, you’re legit. The idiots who just overheard the password always try to haggle when I ask for six gold.” She dropped the sultry seductress routine once she saw me starting to cast, and continued with a much more conversational tone. “So, who recruited you?”
“Drusilla La Salle.”
Her eyes widened at that. “Damn. You know what happened to her? She’s got a bounty for that stunt in Northshire.”
“Oh yeah. She’s been hiding out in Duskwood with me, teaching me the basics when she could get her nose out of the book.”
“Hah! Yeah, sounds like an apprenticeship with this lot to me. How far along are you?” She threw on a light jacket and buttoned up. She still looked pretty good.
“Pretty far I think; Drusilla doesn’t think she has anything else she can teach me.”
A quiet whistle. “Nice. So everything up to soul manipulation, basically? Pretty advanced to be coming here for the first time.”
I shrugged. “I’m a fast learner.” As we spoke, I started to summon Drusilla. “I also was supposed to bring a delivery.”
“The books? The masters will be interested in them, for sure.”
“You could say that.”
Drusilla winked into existence, looking older than I expected. She’d reverted her apparent age for this meeting, probably not wanting to open with an explanation of how she’d lost thirty years of wear and tear. She had the books in a satchel. “Porena. I see they still have you on the evening shift? Was Erich a gentleman as I instructed?”
The apprentice was definitely caught off guard by that. “I see you’ve learned a few new tricks, lady La Salle. Yes. He was polite enough that I might let him actually buy me a drink later.” In another life that would have been a hell of an invitation, but unfortunately I had places to be.
“Damn. I hope there isn’t a time limit on that, Porena, because I have business to attend to now that I’ve helped my teacher get here.”
Drusilla ushered the apprentice downstairs, where she would seek forgiveness for causing a scene by handing over the three books I’d stolen to the small library of forbidden texts they kept here.
“So, summoning me back finally? I was expecting a bit more action after that festival with the dragon chick on the farmhouse.” Mezzo was less than enthused that I’d left him out of Azeroth for a while, it seemed.
“Look, I can’t have you around in public without a disguise and I haven't been in any fights other than that skeleton. I’ve been moving around a lot with people that don’t take kindly to demons.”
“Yeah, yeah. So where’s the necklace so you can disguise me, then? I gave the old one to the strongest demon I know, just like you told me to.”
I scratched the back of my head. “Well I don’t have a lot of spares. These things are valuable.” I thought about it; I had planned on giving Auffrey’s family necklaces, but how necessary was that, really? Probably not urgent, at least. I shrugged and gave him the simple topaz pendant that was still in my inventory from this morning.
Two per day would ease the demand a bit, but I was certain I’d still feel the squeeze for the foreseeable future. Right now, off the top of my head, I needed necklaces on Edwin VanCleef, probably a few other Defias leaders, the four Defias at the farm south of Raven Hill who knew too much, the five prisoners in my inventory, any members of Auffrey’s family that seemed likely to cause problems or be useful, and of course one hundred worgen unless Abby could figure something out there.
Knowing me, I’d find more people I wanted to capture. Hell, I’d kinda wanted to give Porena one when there was absolutely no reason to do so. She just seemed charming and attractive, but she seemed to be outranked by Drusilla, who I was already stronger than. I might try recruiting her into the Lions, but I didn’t need to toss a necklace on literally every person I had an interaction with. Even though I kinda wanted to.
Well, I had privacy and an imp disguised as a goblin in simple brown clothes, so I started summoning Irma and Tessa. I put Tessa’s armor into storage as I summoned her, leaving her in a gambeson and padded pants. I’d need to check and see if I could get her something nicer on the way to Auffrey’s house.
Irma was a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. For one thing her breasts were nearly the size of her head, and her hips and ass were equally extreme. Her waist was thin, but mostly just proportionally so. It was all stuffed into a formal dress that covered her completely from her chin to her knees, but was contoured to hug her figure so tightly as to come back around to being provocative, but with plausible deniability. I knew just enough from relationships in my old life to recognize how much effort she had put into looking like she was wearing hardly any makeup, and her hair was mostly in a bun, except for a bit that had been left to frame her face.
She stood with perfect posture as she assessed the room, flashing a satisfied smirk when she noticed me giving her a once over. Tessa and Mezzo’s outfits each earned a scowl. “Sir. I notice that your other companions are underdressed for nearly any situation outside of brawling in the streets. I would be honored if you would give me the opportunity to get them proper clothing. What is the nature of your next engagement, and do I have time for such an excursion?”
I snorted. “You don’t waste time, do you? Alright, probably a good idea. You have two hours, I’m going to an informal dinner with a minor noble family. She’s my bodyguard and he’s a servant. Meet me near the entrance to Old Town, use your map to find me if you need to. Here’s one gold piece, that’s your budget unless you want to spend it out of your own pocket. Tessa, you can dress how you want as long as you look presentable. Mezzo, do whatever Irma tells you to.”
Well, I had two hours to kill now; dinner wouldn’t be till 8 anyway.